


Valentine's Eve

by Amanitus



Series: Flowers of Evil [1]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: And Sebastian is a snark, Angst, Banter, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Canon Universe, Ciel Phantomhive is Annoyed, Circus Arc (Kuroshitsuji), During Canon, Eventual Sebastian Michaelis/Ciel Phantomhive, Eventual Smut, For people who don't believe in romance, Frustrated Ciel, Gratuitous Historical Accuracy, I hate spoilers but there's smut okay trust me, Internal Conflict, Is snarkflirt a thing? It is now, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Mild Blood, Mutual Frustration, Not quite fluff because Ciel isn't a fluffball, Passive Aggressive Tea-Drinking, Poetry, Porn With Plot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Power Play, Psychological Warfare, Sebastian Michaelis Being An Asshole, Sexual Content, Shota, Slow Burn, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:20:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22592410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amanitus/pseuds/Amanitus
Summary: There wasn't the slightest softness in that fine imposing face. Whatever emotions it might occasionally deign to show, empathy was not amongst them; only amusement, or bland boredom, or that strange keen side-glance that Ciel caught sometimes. Hunger, thought Ciel. That look was hunger, and in its rare small moments of revelation Ciel felt it pressing on his skin like sharp glass.On the eve of St Valentine's Day, Ciel is faced with a challenge: presenting his affianced with a suitable expression of his affection.But the boy has several problems.He despises sentimentality. He isn't sure how he feels about the Lady Elizabeth. And he's just beginning to figure out exactly how he feels about the demon who will cost him his soul.And exactly how the devious creature feels about him.
Relationships: Sebastian Michaelis/Ciel Phantomhive
Series: Flowers of Evil [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1644034
Comments: 195
Kudos: 377





	1. A Brief Lecture on Love

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Português brasileiro available: [Véspera de Dia dos Namorados](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23390527) by [upatreehouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/upatreehouse/pseuds/upatreehouse)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ciel receives a lesson, and is given an assignment.  
> And reads some Plato.

Ciel opened his eyes and almost immediately narrowed them to glare up at the canopy of his bed. Just beyond the shadowy drapes there was a brief rattle of china.

‘Good morning, sir.’

‘Mhm. Is it?’

A small clatter as a tea-tray settled on the commode beside the bed.

‘Certainly. If only by virtue of the fact that it isn’t yet tomorrow.’ The butler’s voice was quite polite, but Ciel pulled a face in the shadows of his bed. Sebastian knew he was annoyed, then, and knew precisely why. Of course he did. Smug bloody arse.

He was home again, anyway. The greasy smoke had almost washed out of his hair. The nitrous stench of gunpowder from his hands. It was quiet here.

Ciel closed his eyes again. Just in time, too, because the bed-curtains were swept insistently open and the thin winter daylight fell across his face. His shoulders ached. It had been nearly midnight before he'd finally managed to find sleep, and each night it seemed to take a little longer. Half an hour's agonised thrashing between cold sheets before he'd eventually teased himself to some kind of satisfaction. And the bitter wind outside kept him restless.

‘Why can’t _you_ just pick something, Sebastian?’ He heard the chink of the tea-pot’s lid in the pause before his servant answered.

‘The Lady Elizabeth is your fiancée, sir. The gift must be of your choosing.’

Ciel kept his eyes resolutely closed. ‘A hamper of toys from the city store should do it.’

‘It’s Valentine’s Day, young master, not an infant’s birthday celebration.’

Girls like flowers, don’t they? Roses. Daisies. Buttercups. And things. Sweets. He could easily give her a coach-load of sweets.

Aromatic steam drifted from the tea-pot and Ciel breathed in deeply, enjoying it despite himself as the butler continued smoothly. ‘We shall go into the city and drop by Whittaker’s this afternoon.’

‘The jeweller's,’ said Ciel flatly. It was all very empty. He didn't fancy the chill of the coach-ride to London, not today, and least of all to go shopping. He had scarcely arrived home and the beast wanted him on the road again. Not even for any service of the Queen; only Lizzie. _Lizzie_ , curses. And Ciel was still busy relishing the spotless privacy of his own bed after a narrow bunk in a circus tent.

‘Yes, the jeweller’s,’ replied his butler, with a touch of- what? Was that mockery? ‘I hardly think Lady Elizabeth is expecting a bunch of daisies and some Funtom sweets, sir.’

Ciel opened his eyes and raised himself slowly on his elbows. ‘Of course not,’ he said coldly, and took the proffered tea-cup.

‘The tea this morning is a fine-’

‘Earl Grey. I know, I can smell the bergamot.’

Meissen porcelain. A floral design with raised forget-me-nots. Entirely suitable, of course. Of course it would be, served as it was by those particular hands. Prepared by that particular mind. Ciel’s gaze followed the white-gloved fingers and moved up the crisp black woollen sleeve to the butler’s face, which bent intently over the buttering of scones.  
A fine face, if rather disturbingly well-made. The problem wasn’t even the fact that the butler didn’t blink nearly enough, or the tight irony that tucked up the corners of his lips. It was something about his eyes, deep and long-lashed and seemingly somewhere else entirely.

‘I trust there is no problem, sir.’

‘None.’ Ciel met the butler’s glance coldly for a moment before he looked away. ‘Is that plum jam?’

‘It is.’

‘What am I supposed to do if Lizzie gives me a present?’

‘She will. And it won’t be to your liking, and you will be obliged to do what every polite small boy must when he receives an embarrassing gift, sir: smile widely, thank profusely, and avoid eye contact.’

‘I’m not a small boy,’ muttered Ciel, but it was absent-minded habit more than irritability at this point; he was thinking hard. ‘It’s a bore.’ He took his plate of scones. ‘The whole thing. The whole entire bloody overblown thing. How about chocolates?’

‘Jewellery, sir,’ said Sebastian firmly.

‘I don’t know how I’m supposed to choose. Something pink? Pink and shiny. Hell--’

‘My lord, you have known Lady Elizabeth since you were born.’ Sebastian’s dark eyes were rather unpleasantly amused. ‘I think you have a reliable grasp on the intricate subtleties of her mental processes.’

The young earl looked sideways at the butler, scone in hand. ‘You consider my cousin unintelligent.’

‘I consider all humans unintelligent, sir. I don’t discriminate. Although your cousin is her mother’s daughter, and promises to prove a formidable intellect in her own mortal way. Meanwhile, she chooses a path of ruffles and sunshine. She shows great commitment to the aesthetic. It’s quite inspiring.’ The butler laid one hand quietly upon his buttoned chest.

‘You’re leaning rather heavily on the sarcasm today, Sebastian. She’s a lollipop on two legs. She’s going to expect something decent.’

‘Undoubtedly.’

‘It’s ridiculous.’

‘It’s customary.’

‘But Valentine’s day is for lovers.’

‘Apparently.’

‘And if I don’t love her?’ The earl looked up at his butler, pursing his mouth thoughtfully, and felt at once the hopelessness of even raising such a subject with his servant. With a thing that wasn’t even mortal, for God’s sake. There wasn't the slightest softness in that fine imposing face. Whatever emotions it might occasionally deign to show, empathy was not amongst them; only amusement, or bland boredom, or that strange keen side-glance that Ciel caught sometimes. Hunger, thought Ciel. That look was hunger, and in its rare small moments of revelation Ciel felt it pressing on his skin like sharp glass.

Not now, though. Now Sebastian straightened the butter knife on the breakfast tray, his eyes politely averted. ‘I have no doubt that you are attached to your cousin, sir. _Philia_ , if not _eros._ ’

Ciel watched him over his scones. ‘It’s entirely too early in the morning for a Greek lesson,’ he said. ‘ _Philia_ means friendship. That’s not love.’

The butler smiled. A small smile that barely showed on his lips, and in his eyes not at all. ‘Do you know, young master, I believe you’re correct.’

Ciels stopped chewing. Things got dangerous when Sebastian agreed with him. ‘Correct about--?’

‘It’s still too early in the day for lessons. I think I shall cancel your fencing this morning, and schedule a few hours of Greek.’

Ciel stared at him. ‘If you’re planning on more bloody Socrates-’

‘Dear me, no.’ Sebastian turned back towards him, and his smile was as sweet and brittle as toffee. ‘A brief lecture on the classes of love according to classical Greek philosophy. Not Socrates, sir; which is to say, very little Socrates, but possibly quite a great deal of Plato.’

‘You’re serious.’ Ciel put down his plate. ‘A lecture on love. From a demon. That’s a touch too ironic even for you.’

Sebastian bowed. ‘Irony, like cholera, accepts no boundaries, sir.’

Ciel sniffed. ‘Are you qualified to teach on a subject you cannot possibly comprehend first-hand?’

‘The world is full of professional hypocrisy, my lord.’ The butler was tidying up the tea-tray.

‘Oh?’

‘Indeed.’ Sebastian paused to count on his long gloved fingers. ‘Bald barbers. Male midwives. Faithless lovers. Sinful bishops. Tightrope walkers without the slightest modicum of talent or--’

‘Enough.’ Ciel glared. ‘Hypocrisy would be your business, wouldn't it? A pastry chef who doesn’t eat human food. I shouldn’t be surprised.’

‘No, my lord,’ replied the butler coolly. ‘It would be rather a waste of your time at this point. And I do hope, sir, that wasn’t just an oblique insult to my pastries.’

‘No,’ Ciel had to admit, and stretched his shoulders tiredly. ‘I have no complaints about your baking.’

‘Or any aspect of my service,’ said Sebastian, and it was almost a question. Because he already knew the answer, damn him. Ciel hesitated, and decided to ignore it as he moved to the edge of the bed.

Of course not, he thought. He could find no fault at all with Sebastian’s service. The butler was very nearly perfect, apart from a decided tendency towards unnecessary sarcastic commentary.

‘Hurry with my clothes,’ Ciel said. He shivered, dangling his bare feet over the edge of the bed, and looked away from the pale cold profile of the demon at his side.  
Perfect. And so he should be. Hell knows the price of it was steep enough.

*****************************

Ciel curled up his chilled fingers within the velvet depths of his pockets as he made his way reluctantly downstairs for his lesson. He'd happily have given up a week of sweets to be able to stay in bed, to sleep in the dim warm half-light and hide from the world for a while. Lizzie was visiting tomorrow, and he wasn't even remotely ready for it.

He needed sleep. He needed time to breathe. His chest buzzed uneasily, and the memory of his last attack of asthma was still sickeningly clear. The sharp tang of vomit in his wet mouth and Sebastian's fingers at his lips and black panic, and he'd heard it, the rising screams, and the sounds weren't his.

But still raw in his throat. Perhaps they had been his own screams after all. Some days it was hard to tell. 

He paused with his hand on the handle of the library door. Was that raised voices?

The door flung open sharply. Ciel blinked.

‘Ah, young master.’ Sebastian sighed and stepped out into the hallway, closing the door carefully behind him. It was too late, though; Ciel had already heard the confusion of high voices within.

‘Oh,’ Ciel said tiredly. ‘Mey-rin?’

‘She decided to clean the fireplace, sir.’ Sebastian was brushing down his sleeves. He was wearing the black scholar’s robe he liked to assume when he tutored one of the earl’s lessons, and there was a dishearteningly large stack of books tucked under his elbow. ‘And I regret to report that Finny assisted her.’ 

‘Ash on the carpets?’

‘Ash on every possible surface, and a few impossible ones, too. I do believe your morning lessons have just been moved to your office, my lord.’

It would be warmer up there, anyway, Ciel thought as he went thoughtfully back upstairs, Sebastian following soundlessly on the staircase behind him. And it would feel less like schoolwork if he could sit at his own desk instead of the little table in the library: he’d nearly be able to pretend it wasn’t a lesson at all, only a business briefing from one of his amusingly subservient company employees.

‘Come along,’ the earl said as he wriggled comfortably in the buttoned leather of his office chair. ‘Let’s get this over with. We’ve still got to get into London after lunch.’

But Sebastian looked neither hurried nor particularly subservient this morning as he dropped the stack of books on Ciels’ desk and settled a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles on his nose. ‘There will be time enough for shopping, sir.’ He pushed an exercise book towards his master, followed by a pen and ink-pot. ‘You have been forced to neglect your lessons while conducting Her Majesty's investigations, but I see no reason why today should be counted as a holiday. Tomorrow morning is going to be entirely wasted with Lady Elizabeth’s visit, and you must not fall behind in your studies.’

Ciel leaned forward on his folded arms, watching his butler frown over the spectacles at an open textbook. ‘Is it quite necessary for you to be dressed like that before you can teach?’

‘Not at all, my lord. But it is entirely necessary for me to be dressed like this before you can learn. Elbows off the table, sir, your sleeve is getting in the ink.’

Ciel straightened up slowly and pulled the textbook closer to him, glancing up from the page at Sebastian. The demon was quite correct. It would be almost impossible to take orders from his butler so long as he wore that familiar black tailcoat. As it was, though, in the rather archaic dark robe, Sebastian seemed oddly focused somehow. Sharpened. His long eyes behind the spectacles seemed suddenly and startlingly present.

Ciel looked back down at the page, and began to read with a sigh. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to get out of this one.

And perhaps it was good to have something to do.

An hour later he had managed two chapters, and was resisting the urge to begin scrawling something rude inside the back cover of his notebook as Sebastian paced across the vast Axminster rug in front of the fireplace. 

‘Have you finished reading, sir?’

‘Yes,’ said Ciel shortly. It was odd to hear the bluntness of the demon’s manner today. He’d become so accustomed to those bland service manners-- no eye contact, no direct questions, only an invisible presence, a slight movement at one’s elbow at the dinner table. Now Sebastian was waiting quite impatiently, his eyes keenly watching his master. ‘Although I’m not sure that I agree with the Ancients’ formulation of love.’

‘They did not formulate these ideas, sir, they merely labelled them. The laws of love are universal, as inviolable as the laws of gravity. It is a web of connection, the foundation of both matter and meaning. I thought you were supposed to be clever, my lord.’ The tilt of the demon’s sleek head was decidedly insolent.

Ciel looked at him icily. ‘That isn’t what Newton's _Principia_ says, Sebastian.’

‘Of course it isn’t, sir. Mortals are odd little things. I have never seen a species so utterly tangled in mutual dependence and so utterly oblivious of it.’

‘I am not in the mood for your condescension today. If the laws are so universal, why don’t they apply to demons?’

‘They do.' Sebastian paused in front of the fireplace, his gloved hands tucked behind his back. 'They apply to every living thing in the universe. That _is_ the meaning of the word universal.’ 

Ciel raised his chin to look at him. ‘You know you’re bound to truthfulness, Sebastian. Don't mess me about.' He paused, clearing his throat. 'Are you admitting you’re capable of affection?’

The demon smiled crisply, and Ciel didn't like the dark glitter in that gaze. ‘Not quite, sir. Are you admitting you just read thirty pages of Plato and still think that affection is the only form of love? Page thirty-one, my lord. From the top. I think you had better take notes, this time.’

Ciel bent over his exercise book, biting his lip. But he picked up the pen, and it wasn’t long before he’d filled two pages with his fairly smudged cramped handwriting.

‘Read it back, sir.’

Ciel glanced back up at Sebastian before he began to read out his work. He had added his own commentary to the notes he’d taken, and after a moment’s hesitation he began to read the entire thing.

' _Storge is familiar love. A natural sort of bond between parents and children, between members of a team or workplace, a comfortable affection born from close contact and familiarity._ (Is this why I put up with my incompetent staff?)

_Pragma is enduring. The type of love found between long-married couples and very old friends. An honest unsentimental love that has weathered many changes._ (And this must be why Tanaka puts up with all of us.)

_Philia is affection: centred in the mind. Friendship, loyalty, love between equals; sharing one’s thoughts and ideals with another. A balanced emotion._ (Perhaps this is what I felt for Lizzie when we were children; any sharing of emotion has long-since ceased between us, though. Sebastian was wrong, as I might have expected on this subject.)'

Ciel fancied he saw the butler’s thin mouth twitch, but he continued.

_'Eros is desire: centred in the body. Romance, intensity of feeling and a sensation of need; an uncontrolled animal emotion that cannot be reasoned with._ (I can only imagine this is the reason the red-haired reaper keeps lurking in our back garden and trying to waylay my butler behind the boxwood hedge.)'

‘Now, young master--’

Ciel ignored him.

' _Ludus is playfulness. Flirtation and conversation, where Eros is tempered with light-heartedness. Associated with romance and youthful affection._ (Precisely the sort of pointless self-indulgence that keeps Valentine’s day fixed firmly on the calendar.)

_Agape is unconditional: centred in the heart. Entirely unselfish and honourable. It is compassionate, saintly, free from need or desire, and shows no discrimination._ (I have never seen an example of such an emotion and suspect it exists only in the Bible or bad poetry.)'

Ciel glanced up Sebastian. The demon was watching him over folded arms, his shoulder against the mantelpiece. His mouth was tightly compressed and his eyes looked unsettlingly bright and sharp.

‘Continue, sir.’

Ciel looked back down at his notes.

' _Mania. The most unbalanced form of Eros. If agape is the highest form of love, then mania is the lowest and most dangerous. Obsession, compulsion, jealousy; a consuming force that overwhelms and binds the relationship. A possessive vice that will destroy the object of its lust. Closer to primal hunger than anything else.'_

Ciel didn’t dare raise his eyes from the page. There was a pause, and a crackle of snapping coal from the fireplace.

‘Well done, sir.' Sebastian's voice was careful, a light sort of tip-toe in the hushed office. 'Your comprehension is gratifying, as always.' The demon straightened himself with a little shake, and began to pace again across the rug. And when Ciel finally looked up, the demon's dark eyes were narrowed in something like a smile.

'I do hope you have been paying attention, sir, because I intend to set you a practical exercise. You are going to write a poem.'

Ciel's hand curled and uncurled in his lap. ‘A poem.’ He cleared his throat.

‘Indeed, sir. The theme is love. The due date is tomorrow morning, and the recipient-- your most charming muse-- is to be the Lady Elizabeth.’ 

Ciel sat back in his chair, watching the demon. He drew a long breath. What exactly did the bloody thing expect him to write? Sebastian waited, rolling a pencil slowly between his long gloved fingers, and his pale face was fixed in that irritating small smile.

‘I fail to see why you think it is necessary, Sebastian.’

‘Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, my lord.’

The earl narrowed his eyes. ‘Since when does a demon care for the honouring of a saint’s feast day?’ 

‘St Valentine was beaten to death by order of the Roman Emperor, seven hundred years ago. It was just outside the Gates of Flaminius. The soldiers burnt his shattered corpse to ash.’ The butler shrugged pleasantly. ‘If that isn’t a triumph of sin, sir, I don’t know what is. But my allegiance is not to any feast day, my lord; only to you.’ Sebastian bowed.

‘I don’t write poetry,’ Ciel said with finality.

‘Shakespeare managed a hundred and fifty sonnets. I think you can turn out a scrap of doggerel for the occasion, young master. Or shall I have the honour of whipping you for disobedience?’ Sebastian’s eyes had the slow warm glow of dying coals.

‘You wouldn’t dare.’ He frowned down at his open exercise book. ‘And you haven’t got your pointer today, anyway.’ It had been some time since Ciel had last been caned across the fingers by his butler, but he recalled the sting very clearly.

‘I am not above using a steel ruler in times of true desperation, my lord.’

Ciel stood up abruptly and began to stack up his books. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I can command you not to.’

‘Only if it is relevant to our contract, sir. ‘

‘But that’s the point. It isn’t relevant in the slightest. I have no time for sentimental nonsense. _Actually_ \--' the earl straightened his shoulders. 'I have entirely too _much_ time left before I need the burden of bothering about love.'

'I see. You consider yourself a child, then.' The demon raised one brow. 

The earl looked at his servant coldly. 'Of course not.' _Of course I'm not a child. I haven't been a child for many years, now. Of all the people who ought to know it--_

'I should sincerely hope not, sir. Particularly after last night.' Sebastian was tapping the pencil against his chin. 'I believe you are aware that my hearing is quite exceptional.' 

Ciel breathed carefully. His throat stung with heat. Surely the demon didn't mean what he thought he did. He couldn't have heard, not that, the small hungry gasp Ciel had made in the silence of his midnight room as he teased himself, tugged himself to the very edge of pleasure--

'I don't--' Ciel stopped. 'I didn't--' His face burned and he kept his eyes fixed on his desk. The hateful creature was playing one of his obscure and terrible games, and Ciel found himself suddenly unready. The demon had no proof, anyhow; he could be talking about anything at all. 'I simply mean that writing poetry is utterly pointless. I have no interest in such an unreasonable expression of emotion, and I don’t intend--’ Ciel glanced up and stopped. Sebastian’s quiet face was maddeningly smug. ‘What?’ he asked shortly.

‘My lord, how many violent assaults were reported in London last year?’

'Oh.' Ciel paused, book in hand. ‘I don’t see--’

‘Over six thousand, sir. Six thousand unreasonable expressions of emotion.’ Sebastian met his master’s gaze steadily as he crossed to the earl’s desk and sat himself down on the edge of it. ‘Love has caused more murders than logic ever will. If you refuse to understand even the simplest motivations and emotions of the common herd, I cannot see how you intend to predict the outcomes of these little games you like to play.’ Sebastian leaned across the desk. 'Surely you must agree, young master.'

Ciel drew back sharply. But the butler only arched his brows, and his smile was tight as he dropped his pencil back into the malachite pen-holder at Ciel’s elbow. 

‘There is no need to flinch, sir,’ he said. ‘I'm not even showing my claws, yet.’ 

Ciel looked away, feeling the angry flush that must be growing on his cheeks. ‘It’s very nearly midday. I expect lunch on the table in ten minutes, you know.’ He turned away from his desk and didn’t look back at his butler as he headed for the door. ‘And the coach at half-past one.’

‘Of course, sir,’ came Sebastian’s voice. It carried with clear insistence. ‘As you please.’

**********************

Lunch was on time, of course. And so was the Phantomhive carriage, waiting at the bottom of the manor steps, with the horses’ breath fogging the bitter winter air.

Ciel was almost irritated by it sometimes. Which was...unreasonable. He admitted it to himself on the way to London, as he watched the muddy grey blur of road through the coach window. 

He made demands, and his butler provided flawlessly, and sometimes it was irritating. 

Did Sebastian ever make a mistake? Did he sometimes miscalculate? Had he ever been preparing dinner and sliced right through the tip of his thumb? The thought of that white glove slowly staining red was quite satisfying. 

Ciel shifted on the cold coach seat. It was still winter-cold, but the first buds were showing on the trees. This wind, this wind made him restless.

He’d seen Sebastian injured, of course, against the reapers and their weapons; the butler’s recovery after their encounter with Jack the Ripper had taken quite some days. But that had been almost unsettling, the sight of the demon’s pain and blood-darkened uniform.

Ciel knew what the contract meant to him-- it was the only chance for a child’s revenge in a world carved from adult cruelty. 

The demon, though. For him it was a meal.

Ciel frowned past the bare trees to the wet London skyline beyond. Was his soul truly so delectable? Was it worth all this to Sebastian, the indignity of servant’s duties? Frequent danger and endless boredom, and undeniable pain. Driving a coach in winter sleet.

It was almost laughable. But if it were not quite the entire truth, the alternative was more impossible-- that the demon endured his service because he had some reason to enjoy it. 

Ciel sighed, leaning his forehead briefly against the cold bump of the window as the coach swung through the crowded city streets. Either way, it meant he held some value to his servant that he would never comprehend, a value higher than the boy ever placed upon himself. That was the unsettling part. To mean so much to somebody. Anybody, and his demon in particular--

When Lizzie looked at him with her wide and beautiful eyes, their radiance burnt him. She looked at him but she didn’t see. The boy in her mind was only an illusion, an image of memory, a reflection of hopeful innocence. 

Her encouragement hurt, and all of her undoubted heartfelt love for him weighed like a stone in his body. She didn’t know what he was. She couldn’t begin to understand. Nobody could-- not his shrewd kind aunt, or vague and hearty uncle. 

There was only one creature who seemed to see past the earl’s facade to the broken soul beneath. One pair of eyes. They were dark and long-lashed and occasionally rather absent, and even their memory pinned Ciel like a drugged moth, fluttering despite himself.

To be seen in all your corruption, to be utterly understood, and still be desired by those eyes--

The coach slowed and stopped on the cobblestones, and Ciel straightened the bow at his throat and settled his top-hat onto his head. He heard the clatter of the coach door before it swung open under Sebastian’s hand, and the boy stepped down into the windy afternoon street. 

The crowd was brisk and loud, the passersby ducking between the cabs and carriages and into the bright-lit shops. 

‘Whittaker’s, sir,’ said the butler. ‘I took the liberty of sending a telegram this morning; the proprietor is expecting you.’

‘Of course you did,’ Ciel muttered. He held his heavy cape closer around his body and sighed as he passed under the swinging sign of the jeweller’s store, and Sebastian followed, silent as a dog at his heels.


	2. Iambic Cruelty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ciel buys a gift for his fiancée, and spills his tea.  
> And reads some Baudelaire.

‘We have some lovely bangles, my lord. Rose gold, and a very delicate buckle motif for the young lady.’

‘No,’ said Ciel. ‘Something-- I don’t know. With a gemstone.’

‘Of course.’ Mr Whittaker’s thin face crinkled into a smile, and Ciel felt the man’s eager eyes flicker over his finely-tailored coat. The earl meant money to this man, and the vulgarity behind the jeweller’s polite glistening eyes was faintly disgusting. Mr Whittaker opened a second casket on the counter in the quiet back room he’d led them to. Behind the heavy drapes across the room, the storefront was humming with busy voices. ‘The double heart design is very popular, my lord. Perhaps with the ruby setting--’

‘No.’ Ciel looked away from the open glass case. ‘I am not buying her a ring.’

‘Ah, very wise, sir,’ said Mr Whittaker. ‘Without the lady herself to check the correct size-- and of course, there is the necessary effort of resizing it as the young lady grows up.’

‘I don’t believe that would be such a problem,’ said Sebastian, his voice quietly dismissive. ‘The young lady in question is nearly fully-grown, and her fingers are unlikely to get so very much larger.’

‘That isn’t the problem,’ Ciel said coolly, not even turning his head to address the butler. ‘And she isn’t grown-up at all. I simply think a brooch is more appropriate.’

‘If you say so, my lord,’ said Sebastian, as the jeweller’s lined face creased into an obedient smile. When Mr Whittaker turned to open another velvet-lined jewel-box on the counter, Ciel heard the small sharp breath of his butler’s silent laughter, and his low voice. ‘It cannot have escaped your notice, young master, that your fiancée is far closer to being a woman than you are to being a man.’

‘Lizzie has always been taller than I,’ Ciel murmured, nearly below his breath, in a hushed voice meant only for those sharp demonic ears. ‘This is no time for impertinence.’

‘Oh, sir.’ Sebastian’s murmur was amused. ‘I wasn’t talking about her _height_.’

Ciel tightened his mouth. ‘Be quiet, you. That is none of your business.’ 

‘My master’s lady is _very_ much my business, sir,’ said the butler in that same low tone, but Ciel ignored him as he stepped over to look at the jeweller’s open boxes. 

The insolence of him. Had the demon been watching Lizzie, then? Noticed how quickly she’d grown since summer? The way her familiar childish body was softening, and those budding swells under her pin-tucked cotton bodice. Under that dress she’d look like one of the cherubs painted on the Manor’s ballroom ceiling. Coral-nippled, fair-skinned.

Ciel had noticed. But it soured his throat to think Sebastian was watching his cousin too. 

And com _paring_ the two of them, dear gods, watching _him_ \-- When? In his evening bath? With those sleepy dark eyes, those eyes, damn him--

And he would have to undress in front of his butler, knowing it.

‘Pearls, my lord,’ said Mr Whittaker. ‘A very nice symbol of innocence for a youthful Valentine.’

Ciel cleared his throat. He couldn’t begin to think of these things, not _now_. ‘No pearls.’ Lizzie had pearls, ropes of pearls already. They did look nice against her skin, that same flushed fair skin that her brother had. The particular Midford type of beauty.

‘Opals are quite popular, sir. Of course, some folk are quite superstitious about opals, and won’t have them in the house for fear of bad luck and curses. If you can believe it. But I am sure that my lord is above such fears--’

‘No.’ Ciel’s eyes moved from the jeweller’s quick thin hands to the quiet face of the demon who stood at the counter. Sebastian’s absent dark eyes were fixed on the rather bourgeois carpet. ‘Not opals.’ Lizzie didn’t need a shadow of a curse in her life. She lived in sunlight.

‘Well, then, these sapphires are very fine. And quite a token of romance, too, sir. They represent fidelity and--’

‘No.’ Ciel’s gloved hand curled around the heavy ring on his thumb. ‘I know what sapphires represent. Is that a sparrow?’

‘Oh.’ Mr Whittaker’s sparse grey brows rumpled. ‘Those are bluebirds, my lord.’ It was a little tray of enamelled brooches, a clear colour like the sky. Graceful small birds, forked tails aloft. ‘But sir, they are very common. Imports from America. Only glass and paint and silver, my lord. No stones at all--’

‘Bluebirds for happiness,’ said Ciel slowly. Small birds, playing in a sunlit garden. Chasing each other through the flowers. ‘I’ll take one of those.’

The look of dismay on Mr Whittaker’s face was nearly comical. He must have been so sure his noble customer would buy a thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds, at least. ‘Of course, but are you--’

‘Pay for it, Sebastian.’ Ciel turned and left the back office, pushing through the heavy curtain and passing through the crowded jeweller’s store without glancing left or right.

***************************

The sun was pale and low before the coach arrived home again, although it was only late afternoon; the air between Ciel’s coach step and the manor doors was bitterly cold. It smelt of smoke and mud.

He was so tired of this endless wind. It was especially bad this year; here in the south, and in the whistling London streets; and on the endless barren hills at Renbourne Workhouse. He shivered under the swing of his heavy coat as he ascended to his front door. Home again. It was always good to find it still standing.

It was warm in his study, the one reliably comfortable room in the cursed house. His chair was pulled up close beside the fire, and he was watching the gilt clock-face. He had a little volume of poetry open with a page and pencil tucked between and he was pretending to himself that he wasn’t half-composing something in his head.

Not because Sebastian had ordered it. It was a decent challenge, after all. Something to focus his mind on. Rhyme and metre. Poetry had rules. It followed patterns. It might not be so difficult.

The base of his skull ached, though, and Ciel sighed. The twist was coiling itself in his belly again, that irritating restlessness that kept him awake at night and woke him all too often at dawn, flushed and damp and _stiff_. 

Years of careful work, guarding his thoughts, dragging himself back from the hell in his head, and now his body betrayed him again; woke him to nightmares, or this. The utter humiliation of need. The wrong kind of hunger completely.

It had only taken a curious flick or two of his fingers, at first, to reduce that twitch between his legs to its usual soft obedience. Those first few months were simple. And then the more exasperated experimentation, the realisation that he wasn’t simply going to grow out of this inconvenience, and was in fact rapidly going to grow _into_ something else.

He knew well enough how to relieve himself. A few trips with his butler through the filth of the East End alleys had given the Queen’s Watchdog an education on human carnality and satisfaction; the toothless old prostitutes with their faded hair, and the shockingly fresh young ones. Pretty boys tightened into corsets and sulky-mouthed girls in unlaced boots. Men with their trousers around their knees, pleasuring themselves in the muddy shadows between street and tavern, not even looking around at passers-by, unashamed by the dangle of their bare swollen organs. 

Human desire in all its vile hungry nakedness. Ciel had seen enough to know.

To know the danger of it, too. Desire and death walked hand in hand through London streets, and Ciel had seen it. Files full of stolen children in Inspector Abberline’s office, and whores’ corpses in the morgue beneath. A cage of blank small faces in the cellars of Kelvin Manor, bone-white and glowing already in the spreading ruby flames.

Ciel turned the page of his book, swallowing with something near a convulsion. He would not think of this. Only of the price of wanting. The price of need. It was everywhere, the pulse of carnal desire. It was humiliating to realise he couldn’t escape this mortal need, and it was unfair. As if he’d asked for this. As if he wanted what the back-alley gents want. As if he wanted to be _touched_. 

It couldn’t be ignored, though. It was simpler just to work through the thing briskly, like any other problem, and try to forget it afterwards. But the slow-rising heat of it, the languorous pleasure that he managed to tease out of himself was dangerous. He liked it. The perfect blank satisfaction of release, and the stillness in mind and body. The silence _._

Ciel looked again at the clock.

When the study door opened at last, it felt as though something had tightened, knotted within his chest. 

‘Tea, sir. And rhubarb tart.’ 

Ciel closed his book and his eyes, resting his head back against the padded velvet of his chair. ‘Everything is prepared for tomorrow?’

‘Yes, my lord. Your gift for Lady Elizabeth is wrapped and on your desk. The flowers have been ordered, and a hamper of chocolates will be delivered to the Midford house at breakfast time. She will arrive here just before noon, for luncheon in the conservatory, and Lady Francis has indicated that she and your uncle will also be attending. The menu is--’

‘Damn the menu. Aunt Francis is coming?’ Ciel opened his eyes. His butler stood beside the armchair, holding out the tea-cup, and Ciel felt as though he barely had the strength to reach up for it.

‘Yes, sir. I believe I mentioned this last week. No doubt it is only lack of sleep that is affecting your memory.' Sebastian’s warm voice was almost insultingly gentle. Had he guessed at the dreams of flame and knife and bullet that pulled his master sweating from his sleep? The painted faces wet with blood. Porcelain limbs ground to powder under the demon's riding boot, and the sharp percussion of the pistol in Ciel's grip. The spread of blood across the Baron's shirt-front.

_I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams._

Do demons dream?

Ciel hadn't called out for Sebastian in the night, only held the cold butt of his pistol against his chest and breathed. He would not call out for him.

'If you would prefer that your aunt does not attend--’

‘It’s fine.’ Ciel shuffled himself higher in his chair and took the tea-cup, not looking at his butler. He didn't need to see it know the lines of it. Long lashes, and fine wide mouth. Dark sweep of hair. The questioning lilt of the creature’s brows. 

The general inhuman loveliness of it.

‘You are working at your poem, I see.’ A pause. ‘...sir.’

‘Hardly. A little research. Classic love poems in literature.’

‘I am curious as to your observations so far, young master.’

Ciel shrugged. ‘ “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” ’

‘Indeed.’ Sebastian’s thin mouth curved. ‘The English sonnet has its charms, sir. A classic form. Somewhat stilted, though, in comparison to the modern poets.’

‘Oh, do you think?’ Ciel kept his voice innocent. ‘You are about to abuse the finest writer in the English language. Please, go ahead. I await with _ut_ most eagerness.’ 

‘Oh, no.’ Sebastian raised his brow in some surprise. ‘Not at all. Shakespeare was the master of the iambic pentameter, sir, and nobody can deny its power.’ The demon paused. ‘It is a beat, do you see? Not a waltz, not the dip of a swimming bird’s head, but something stronger, bolder; something relentless. The most natural of beats, for word and foot. It moves in every human’s blood.’ He tilted his head with an odd hot light in the depth of his eyes. ‘Iambic is the metre of your heart, sir.’

_And one. And two. And three, And four. Again~_

Ciel looked at him. ‘So it is,’ he said, finally. ‘It is, isn’t it?’

‘My objection is not to the form, but to the era. Perhaps you need to balance your research with a touch of modern love poetry. You are not fond of sentimentality, you say.’ Sebastian’s smile this time was quick and sly. ‘ _Je m'avance à l'attaque, et je grimpe aux assauts_ \--’ 

The demon’s voice had a light huskiness in French, and it seemed to catch on the edges of Ciel’s nerves.

‘ _Comme après un cadavre un chœur de vermisseaux,_

_Et je chéris, ô bête implacable et cruelle !_

_Jusqu'à cette froideur par où tu m'es plus belle !’_

Ciel stared, frowned. ‘ “I climb to the attack like a choir of worms upon a corpse...? Even your coldness is beautiful.” ’ He half-smiled. ‘What the deuce is that supposed to be?’

‘Baudelaire, young master.’ Sebastian held out the slim yellow volume and bowed. ‘One of the French decadents. He did squalor exquisitely well.’

Ciel took the book, leafing through it. ‘I hardly think this will be suitable for my purposes. It’s-- quite obscene. This--’ He paused over the word that had caught his eye. _Diable_. ‘ “It is the Devil who pulls the strings and makes us dance,” ’ he translated slowly. ‘ “Disgusting objects appeal to us; each day we step a little further into Hell, fearless as we descend into the stench of darkness.” ’ Ciel closed the book sharply. His hands were chilled, damp, and he flexed his fingers. ‘It must be something suitable for Lizzie. If I am going to do it properly.’

‘If you are going to do it properly,’ repeated Sebastian with slow mockery, ‘it must be indicative of your nature, sir. The work must reflect its maker.’ 

‘You think I will not find my muse in Shakespeare.’ Ciel pursed his mouth at the butler’s cool gaze.

‘I think you are more likely to find it in honesty, sir.’ Sebastian turned back to the tea tray. 

‘And now you accuse me of lying. Remember who is the master here. I’m not in the mood.’

‘Not lying, not exactly, sir. Only on the subject of your engagement, and only a little self-deception.’ The butler presented his master’s plate of pastry with careful gloved fingers. Ciel didn’t look at him as he took it.

‘I don’t remember asking for your advice.’

‘I don’t believe you would ever admit to needing any. If I may continue, my lord--’ Sebastian waited. Ciel took a bite of rhubarb tart and said nothing. There was no point encouraging the smug bastard and his insolence, but the earl was-- he admitted it to himself-- curious.

Sebastian dipped his dark head slowly. ‘Thank you, sir. I simply think you expect too much of your engagement. Too much, and not nearly enough.’

Ciel still didn’t reply. He didn’t raise his eyes, either.

‘You are not an ordinary child, my lord, and you--’

‘I’m not a child at all.’ Coldly. If the demon was going to lecture him--

A pause. ‘Very well, sir. You are not an ordinary mortal, and you expect to find ordinary happiness. You will be disappointed, young master.’

Ciel’s head hummed in irritation. ‘I am not looking for happiness,’ he snapped. ‘I am looking for revenge, and in the meantime, perhaps a little bloody peace and _quiet_. I’ve had enough. You may go.’

‘Of course, sir.’ But the butler didn’t leave, only crouched at the fireside to scoop a little more coal into the low blaze. 

The pastry was delicious, tart rhubarb and sweet custard thick on Ciel’s tongue. He was hungrier than he’d realised. Was that the taste of almond in there?

If only all his desires could be satisfied with cake.

Ciel glanced over at the butler, who was sitting back on his heels on the hearthrug. The ruby firelight cast a sharp shadow over the demon’s cold profile. His buttoned chest was close enough to kick. ‘What is that--’ Ciel licked glaze from his cake fork-- ‘par _tic_ ular look for?’

‘You look pleased, sir. I trust the tart is to your satisfaction.’

‘Are you angling for a compliment? Your pride is abominable.’ Ciel didn’t look back up.

‘It’s always a novelty to see you looking pleased, my lord.’ The demon turned towards the fire, replacing the coal scoop. ‘It is a pity that sweets alone cannot content you. The future might be much simpler, if that were the case.’

Ciel swallowed and put down his fork. ‘Mhm,’ he said carefully. ‘Perhaps.’ The damned creature was much too sharp today.

‘I shall fetch a blanket if you like, sir.’ Sebastian still knelt at the fireside, hesitating.

‘I’m fine.’ Ciel reached for his tea-cup from the tray on the ottoman beside him. ‘I’m not cold.’

‘Your body disagrees.’ Sebastian looked up at him. ‘Gooseflesh, young master, and you have scarcely recovered from your last illness. You do realise if you were to die of pneumonia it would be most inconvenient.’

Sebastian moved his hand. Ciel jumped and the tea slopped into its saucer. The boy looked down at his knee, wide-eyed. 

Sebastian was brushing his gloved fingertip over the bare skin between shorts and thick silk stocking. Lightly, but the touch shivered through Ciel’s thigh. 

‘ _Don’t_.’ Quick and chill, the ripple over his skin, and Ciel squeezed his knees together. ‘Don’t touch me _.'_ He glanced away from the pale pebbling skin and pulled his crossed legs closer, away from Sebastian’s hand. He put down the dripping tea-cup on the tray. His fingers on the saucer-rim were shaking. 

‘It is my duty, sir.’ Sebastian’s voice was low with caution. No, with curiosity, damn him. He ought to know he’d overstepped his master’s boundaries. 

‘Do it without touching me, then.’ Ciel met his gaze and felt his throat tighten in fury. Oh, the demon did know, he knew very well. And still had the gall to look at him with an expression like that--

‘Ah,’ said Sebastian, and he stood up slowly. ‘So you intend to learn how to tie your own shoelaces, sir.’ 

‘Be quiet.’ Ciel was breathing hard. ‘You know what I mean. _Warn_ me before you do that.’

‘Of course, my lord. And if I warn you first, I take it I am permitted to touch you as I please?’ The demon’s voice was still light but his fixed dark eyes held no warmth of humour.

‘Get out,’ Ciel said. Higher than he intended, and not quite controlled. ‘And bring me a new cup.’

‘Yes, young master.’ Sebastian’s bow was careful. His steps on the carpet were silent. Then the door shut behind him and Ciel gasped in, shuddered out, wrapped his arms over his stomach. 

It had only been a hand on his knee, a bloody _fing_ er and he’d scarcely been able to breathe. It was ridiculous. Cold as any chill of fear. 

Not fear, though. 

Ciel drew another breath. Ridiculous. He felt an irrational gasp of weary laughter that never made it to his lips.

As if he could control the way he felt. As if he ever wanted happiness. _Iambic is the metre of your heart, sir._

‘Oh, you idiot.’ Ciel whispered it. 

The coal crackled in the hearth. 


	3. Nightfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sebastian thinks some Interesting Thoughts, and Ciel takes a bath and gets Rather Bothered.  
> And his butler is a little bit Not Nice about it.

Sebastian closed the study door and permitted himself a smile. The heels of his polished oxfords clattered on the bare wooden back-stairs to the kitchen, _tap_ tap _tap_ tip _tap._ Trochee. The butler’s smile deepened.

The young earl had commendable poise, of course. He carried himself well. Guarded every expression on his fine-boned little face but sometimes, _some_ times he forgot. And the utter transparency of that clean blue eye. When relaxed. Or distracted. Or sated with cake. It wasn’t nearly often enough, and it was difficult to last between the rare breathless moments when the child was hesitant-- or better, best of all, was lost enough to call for his servant; to cling and quail, heart-failing, beautiful as sin.

In pain. Or fear. Or most pure horror. Crouching in the cellar beneath the Kelvin Manor, wrapped in his own nightmare. Calling for his demon. Those trembling parted lips, and hands twisted in his servant's clothing, and frightened breaths sour with his own bile. Only a handful of moments, and Sebastian shivered at the very memory.

He paused at the open doorway of the vast hot kitchen, ignoring the chaos of unwashed dishes on the benches and Mey-Rin’s cheerful wobbling song from the scullery beyond.

All was as it should be, stockpots simmering and the red-brick floor scrubbed clean. One would never imagine it had been two foot deep in rubble on Saturday evening; that his master's enemies had penetrated the manor house itself, and found death waiting for them in the shadow of the Phantomhive house. One would never imagine. The relentless pace of the head butler's schedule had pulled the staff back into a semblance of normality, and life closed over death without a scar.

Only the hidden wounds that kept his master sleepless in his bed upstairs.

Sebastian turned into the airy store kitchen next door to the steward's offices. The duck-blue Wileman tea-set was in one of the glass cabinets and Sebastian took out a clean cup and saucer absently.

His master was becoming more abrupt. More frequently dismissing the butler in the middle of a conversation, before Sebastian even finished pouring tea; humiliated to be conversing with his servant at all. Seeking the distraction blindly. Annoyed at his own enjoyment of it, restless again before the demon had even left the room.

Seduction is a simple game. The honesty of mortal desire was almost endearing and Sebastian knew every twitchy little sign of it: the widened eyes when the demon dropped his voice _just so_ , the stiffness in those narrow shoulders. The self-conscious little hands.

Dear Paymon, had it taken only a touch on the knee? His master’s confusion had been quite lovely. More tempting yet, though, was his cold withdrawal, that quick return to wariness. 

Seduction is simple. But resistance is novel, defiance is novel: the fascination showing on that aristocratic young face was stirring, admittedly, but his unwillingness was intoxicating. 

The boy despised his own desires, and that was the demon’s challenge. It always had been. He had his master’s soul secured already. And the young body was fragile enough. For a lesser meal the demon might have forced his prey by now, as easily as he'd taken the circus girl, cracked open the careful clockwork of his master’s manners and satisfied himself in that blushing flesh-- and Hell knows he wanted to; each night when the butler blew the candle out and heard the sleepy burrow of the earl amidst his blankets, oh blue pit of fuckery --

Sebastian ran his tongue thoughtfully across his teeth. Patience had never been one of his strengths.

But no. Not that, not with this one. The boy would only retreat into some inaccessible corner of his icy little mind and Sebastian would be left with only the pretty shell of him. And the demon wasn’t about to let his master off that easily. 

Flesh he could have anywhere, and did, as whimsy seized him; the helpless perfume of lust on a mortal's skin was hopelessly enticing. They waited for their fate, transfixed, and the demon sought pleasure with great simplicity as a beast might. As even a child might, when provoked enough. Lonely enough. Left long enough in a cold bed, a dark bedroom, a vast house in silence. But this child was extraordinary. Too remote to be subdued with force, too clear-minded to be seduced by soft illusions. Despising emotion and deriding sentiment. Conscious enough of his own beauty to use it as another tool. The young nobleman prided himself on his control, a strategist to the end, and he would need to be drawn out. Undone. Bared in his own shame, unable to hide the corruption of his own desire and _then_ \- 

There would be time enough to break him once he’d begged for it.

The boy knew his butler watched him. He was watching back. A game, another game. But not a game of patience, after all. Sebastian’s mouth curled.

One does not out-wait a glacier. One uses heat, and a judicious application of pressure. Flesh is weak, but the spirit-- well. The spirit is worth defiling.

The demon made his way upstairs, and his smile lasted all the way to the study door.

The boy was reading again when Sebastian entered. One slim leg crossed over the other, foot bouncing very lightly in its narrow heeled boot, and the demon’s gaze moved up the dark silk stocking to the bare flash of thigh above it.

That tired blue eye was resolutely downcast. 

His master had opened up a notebook and a pencil was clamped between his small sharp teeth. He tapped his scribbled page in time. Such a pretty hand, and the little finger held high. How the boy would _squeak_ if one twined one’s tongue around it.

The fingers tapped. And _three._ And _four._ And _five_. A mortal heart. 

‘You are going with iambic after all, sir.’ 

A hiss around the pencil. Sebastian replaced the tea-puddled cup and saucer, filled it brimming and set it at his master’s side in silence.

‘I wonder if Aunt Francis would call off the visit if I told her I had influenza.’ Thoughtfully.

‘I would not permit you to call it off even if you had leprosy, young master.’

‘Mhm. The aesthetic of hospitality.’

‘No, sir. I enjoy the entertainment.’

The boy huffed in the shadow of his velvet armchair. ‘Isn’t it supposed to be your duty to help me?’

‘I don’t know what gave you that idea, young master.’ Sebastian looked down at his master. The earl looked back at him with impatience, pink lips ruffled primly. ‘My duty is to keep you alive, sir. I never promised to make it pleasant.’ 

And that did it very nicely. The boy’s blue eye faltered, and his master looked back down at his book. ‘Don’t you have somebody downstairs to yell at?’

‘The bell will ring for dinner at six precisely, sir.’ And the demon spoke quietly as he tidied up the tea-tray. 

‘ _Je t'adore à l'égal de la voûte nocturne,_

 _Ô vase de tristesse, ô grande taciturne_ …’

Baudelaire again. Not bad with words, actually, for a man too melancholic to comb his own hair, but that’s poets for you. Reason has no power against sensation, not really. Not if you tease very, _very_ softly.

_‘Et t'aime d'autant plus, belle, que tu me fuis--’_

The earl’s finger paused in its beat. He was listening. 

_I adore you like the_ _evening sky,_

_O vase of sorrow, O great silence,_

_and love you only more, my beauty, because you flee,_

_because it seems to me, jewel of my night,_

_that you ironically swell the distance_

_between my arms and the blue immensity._

Sebastian closed the door behind him.

*************************

Ciel ate his dinner silently, stirring at the roasted vegetables with his listless fork. 

Carrots. Greens. _And_ Aunt Francis in the morning. He sighed. She carried an air of such determination, and in her brisk and rather overpowering presence he felt like a child. Like a child and nothing more, not even close to the nephew she expected, the son-in-law she hoped for. 

Ciel’s empty wine-glass filled with the pale splash of milk. Tomorrow he’d tell Sebastian to serve him champagne at lunch; he was damned if he’d look like an infant in his own house.

Uncle Alexis wouldn’t be any trouble, at least, not if there was brandy on the table and a fresh newspaper. 

A harsh clatter of metal broke the stillness in the dining room and Ciel looked up.

‘I’m sorry, sir--’ Mey-rin was scrambling for the fallen silver cloche, her aproned skirts ballooning on the carpet as she crouched. ‘I wasn’t watching--’

Sebastian stiffened at the sideboard, his head half-turned. ‘Kitchen,’ he said sharply.

‘Oh, but Mr Sebastian, sir--’

‘At _once_.’ 

She ducked her head and fled. 

Ciel sipped his milk with a small cold thrill of relief; he wasn’t the one in trouble. He forced himself not to sit a little straighter in his seat. He would die rather than admit it, but that edge of anger in his servant’s voice always made him jump. 

He had no pity for his housemaid, though, with her endless clumsiness and rather horribly obvious behaviour around the house’s head butler. Had she no restraint at all? It was only beauty she wanted, after all. The demon moved through the house with the unconscious lightness of a tree-branch caught by wind. Like something simple, something natural, as though it weren’t the foulest trickery. As though the light in the man’s deep eyes was friendliness.

If she’d seen the beast in his rage, his inhuman violence, she’d be in horror of the lovely mask. 

Ciel had seen it. He paused and put down his milk glass. He’d seen his demon blood-soaked, fire-lit, wrist-deep in the flesh of his master’s enemies and nearly laughing with the joy of it, and he had felt horror at the sight. 

Horror. Fear. Revulsion. Something else.

Ciel glanced over at Sebastian’s pale careful face, but the butler’s eyes were lowered as he crossed to the table. Obscured by the sweep of his dark hair as he leaned over it. The servant was undoubtedly beautiful. An unsettling sort of beauty, the corrupt display of something poisonous. Like the book of French poetry sitting upstairs in Ciel’s study. A flower of evil.

Ciel looked away.

Tomorrow, Lizzie. Ciel would give her the gift; and his poem, once he’d finished it. Folded up and tucked amongst the bouquet he would press into her hands, and she’d find it in the carriage as she rattled home beside her mother. Her father dozing in the corner. Her brother Edward watching her, his handsome face creased with the tight caution he always wore at the Phantomhive name. Ciel knew his older cousin didn’t trust him.

But Lizzie would read the poem, and perhaps she’d find something in it she could understand.

Ciel had written her a sonnet. The antiquity of the form pleased him. He could hide behind the structure, fit his hesitant thoughts into the beating lines. A sonnet was supposed to resolve itself in the ending, ask a question and then answer it. Ciel had almost finished it, only caught on the closing couplet.

He sighed and pushed away his dish.

‘I cannot serve dessert until your plate is empty, sir.’

‘I don’t want the carrots.’

‘I cannot serve the cake, then.’ 

‘Fine.’ Ciel pushed back his chair, and it caught in the deep pile of the rug.

‘Sir.’ Sebastian stepped up to assist him. ‘It is a chocolate and hazelnut cake with--’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘My lord.’ Sebastian looked down at him, and Ciel held the narrowed gaze without blinking. That tightness in the butler’s lips looked like irritation. Ciel hoped it was.

‘Very well, then,’ said the butler coolly, ‘as you wish. Go upstairs and I shall run your bath.’

And Ciel was halfway to his bedroom before he realised he’d taken an order from his servant. He swore on the landing. Had he turned and left as obediently as Mey-rin? Compelled by that firm voice-- 

Ciel very nearly slammed his bedroom door but no, that would be much too revealing to the creature who was following quietly up the carpeted stairs.

Too late to ruffle over it now. Ciel leaned against the windowsill in his darkened bedroom, looking out at the strange glow of the snowy garden under low moonlight. The wind whipped sleet against the ancient glass panes and Ciel shivered, listening to the heady gush of taps from the open bathroom door. 

It was too late. He was tired of Valentine’s Day before it had even begun. He wanted only sleep.

He didn’t look at Sebastian as the butler undressed him quietly on the bathmat.

‘I hope you’re not unwell, sir.’ 

‘No.’ Ciel stepped into the steaming bath and slipped deep into the cast-iron tub. The water lapped at his chin, rose-scented. ‘Don’t fuss.’

‘I should hope that you would tell me if you were unwell. Or perhaps you merely intend to feign illness tomorrow, sir.’

‘I have a headache,’ Ciel said. ‘Hold your tongue for once.’ And it was nearly true, though the ache was only a tightness. It was strung all the length of his spine.

‘I shall bring up some chamomile tea, if you--’

‘Hold your bloody tongue, I said.’

‘Of course, my lord.’ The demon knelt beside the bath. ‘Apologies.’

Ciel leaned forward over his tucked-up knees, allowing his butler to run the cloth across his back. He felt the wet fabric catch on the swell of his branded skin and flinched instinctively away, leaning back against the bathtub with a frown. 

The runnel of drips echoed as Sebastian squeezed the cloth out and Ciel followed the flick of the wet gloved fingers. Long fingers, bone-thin. The white cotton of the butler’s gloves was nearly transparent with water and seemed dark-tipped. The black nails were showing through like shadows.

Sebastian ran the cloth down Ciel’s limp arm. It was a light enough touch but Ciel wanted to shrink from it. Perhaps it wasn’t the touch at all that did it, but the trail of appraising eyes, unguarded. He was being watched. He felt scalded. And the heat was hardly the water at all, but a simmer under his skin. 

At his shoulder the butler paused and the long warm fingers slipped behind his head. Ciel felt the gentle pressure on the back of his neck, the very base of his head. The touch was slow, a strong thumb rubbing into his dampened nape, and somehow it seemed to ripple in his stomach. It would be much too good to lean against it, to let the weight of his heavy head relax into his servant’s hands. 

He didn’t, only turned his face aside. The butler moved his hand.

But it was too late already. Ciel felt a twitch in the sleepy flesh between his legs, and the heat was dangerous.

He was horribly exposed, limp in the clear deep water. 

He moved one leg carefully and his bent knee emerged from the swirl of the bath’s surface. He felt rather than saw Sebastian turn his head and it hadn’t helped at all, he’d only drawn the butler’s attention to it. If he said something, if the bloody creature dared to speak--

Sebastian said nothing, only turned back to washing his master. 

Ciel closed his eyes. The heat seemed to have sunk into his bones, a roil of utter shame in his belly. He felt half-raw with the feel of it. Those hungry eyes. If he could only dissolve in the water itself. 

Slow across his throat the washcloth moved, and a squelch of hot water over his chest. The butler’s thumb along the ridge of his collarbone. A fingertip brushed his nipple, feather-light.

Ciel half-opened his eyes. His hands twitched in the water. Another touch, a stir at the stiffening nib, and the quiver of it folded up Ciel’s insides. He breathed in sharply.

He turned his head and saw the butler’s fine mouth held tightly and a glint, an indentation of lengthened canine against the man’s lip. Sebastian’s eyes were steady. They looked at each other, and Ciel didn’t breathe. 

One word and he’d crumple. If the beast dared speak. In silence Ciel might be able to pretend he couldn’t feel the touch on his shivering body, the answering surge at his groin, the depth of that direct black gaze.

Sebastian said nothing. He didn’t move his fingertip, either. 

It was much too quiet in the bathroom.

Ciel stood up in a surge of steaming water and stepped out, stiff as if his limbs were puppet-strung. It should have made him careful but it seemed to slow him clumsily, and he rapped his ankle on the bath’s iron rim and winced, dripping on the bathmat.

The towel was thick and heavy on his shoulders and he pulled it out of the butler’s hands as he turned away, back to the dim expanse of his bedroom with its low fire burning. His throat was tight as though he were close to tears.

The butler was following, was unfolding the nightgown on the earl’s shadowy bed. Ciel’s hands were prickling damp and he tried to shake them out impatiently. A chilly gust came under his bedroom door. The fire was crackling brightly but it could barely counter the deep cold of the bedroom.

If the beast stayed quiet it would be over soon.

‘Head up, please, sir.’ Sebastian’s voice was polite and still, and barely broke the silence. Ciel raised his chin as the butler dried him, quick long strokes while he shivered on the carpet beside his bed. An agonising brush across his hips which nearly bloody _snagged_ on the thickened swing between his legs and Ciel closed his mouth tightly. He didn’t glance downwards.

Then the cool sweep of the cambric nightgown tumbled over his body and he folded his arms across his chest. One moment more.

The butler twitched the puff of covers back with an expert flick and Ciel climbed with relief into the vast shadow of his bed, kneeling in the bare middle of it. He twined his feet together under him and pulled the blanket over his lap.

Sebastian’s voice was quiet on his right as the butler laid out his master’s signet rings on the bedside commode. ‘There is a decided draught in the house this evening. I shall have to see about checking the chimneys in this wing.’ The candlelight beside him dimmed and swayed. 

‘Fine. If you think so.’ The covers were heavy on his lap and Ciel tucked his chilled fingers into the sling of nightgown between his knees. A near-silent whump of heavy fabric as the dark bed-drapes swung closed, a sound like a bird’s swoop.

‘I expect a thaw this week,’ the butler said. ‘The irises are opening. If it suits you, sir, I shall instruct Finny to bring in some of the wildflowers from the hedgerow tomorrow. They are less precious than the glasshouse orchids, but quite lovely, in their own way.’

‘Fine.’ Ciel was hardly listening. Under the blanket the hum between his legs was exhausting. He pushed his fists a little deeper in his lap, feeling the answering stir against them. If he could curl up under the heavy wool, the deep bank of his bed like a snowheap-

‘Branches of winter cherry for the hallway,’ came Sebastian’s warm voice. Low. Sleepy. ‘Daphne for the portico. Hellebore and snowdrops for the table.’ 

Ciel shivered, prodding himself with an exploratory fingertip. The heat of his arousal came through the delicate cotton of his nightgown and the thing bounced back against his touch. ‘Fine,’ he said. He cleared his throat.

‘Fine,’ said the butler, a soft echo. It might have been mocking. He was unfolding another duvet at the bed’s foot, and the drift of camphor-scented air caught in Ciel’s nose. 'Have patience, sir, I am about to leave you. If you can possibly restrain yourself for another moment.’

The absolute bloody bastard.

Ciel swallowed and his tongue felt swollen in his throat. ‘Watch what you say.' Which was utterly stupid, curses, when he could have just pretended to misunderstand.

‘I trust I have not offended you, sir.’ Sebastian’s voice was gentle, almost absent. The white V of the butler’s shirt-front was just visible at the foot of the bed before the drapes fell closed between them. ‘You have no need of shame on my account.’ 

‘I’m not.’ A little too insistent, even to his own ears. 

‘I’m glad to hear it, sir,’ said the butler. Hushed, barely audible behind the heavy drapes. ‘The compulsion towards physical pleasure is animal instinct, not human weakness.’

‘I don’t believe I need your permission.’ Icily. The bulge against Ciel’s hand should have dispersed by now, wilting under his sheer discomfort and low quick-breathing fury, but it didn’t. It ached.

'I wonder, sir.' The butler's words sounded thoughtful. 'Do you watch yourself, or close your eyes?'

‘What--’ Ciel began and failed.

Of course he always did it with his eyes closed. It was just a physical release, he didn’t want to _see._ He closed them now. 

‘Perhaps you have tried doing it in front of a mirror.’ 

The words pooled inside him like a trickle of melted chocolate. As stirring as a touch, and Ciel’s belly quivered. He bit at the inside of his cheek and pushed the covers away from his lap, shivering in the night air. 

‘Perhaps you like to be watched.’

The thought of those long eyes flickering over him, the glisten of that sharp bird-like gaze. He tried not to think. But he wanted to, that searing memory, and his body was still hot with it. The lingering finger in the steam-curled bath. Ciel’s toes tensed. His folded legs prickled with the chill as he slid his nightshirt higher over his thighs.

‘I have tried to picture it, my lord, and I cannot.’ Sebastian’s voice behind the drapes was slow and gentle, as though explaining something carefully. ‘How tightly you hold yourself. How long it takes before you spill.’

‘This is none of your business.’ The words shook and Ciel hoped it sounded angry. It was anger, of course. A steaming flood of it along his spine. The demon had thought about him. Had pictured him doing _that_ \--

Doing this. Ah. This. The soft flesh between his legs was warm in his clammy hand and he shuddered at his own touch. He slipped the loose ring of his fingers around the head of his insistent shaft. 

‘No, it is not my business,’ said the butler. ‘I notice you haven’t asked me to leave, yet.’

The low note in that velvet voice. Ciel swallowed thickly as though he’d been crying and began to pump himself tightly, his toes tucking up under him.

The bed-curtain on his left shook momentarily. He didn’t dare turn his head, only watched the puddle of his own shadow, and the lean wavering one that fell across the coverlet. 

‘I know already that your pleasure is not silent, sir. But I wonder what it is you think of as you play.’ A pause. ‘Who it is you think of.’

Ciel risked a glance to his left and saw only the beast’s eyes. The glint like a knife-edge in firelight. It was much too late. His servant had seen too much, would not fail to make him suffer for this. And too late to change his mind, with this tremble in his grip. 

‘Oh,’ said Sebastian, ‘oh. So that’s how it is.’

That voice. It purred. Ciel felt the heated pulse under his hand and made a small noise. And hated himself fiercely for it, and held his breath. His servant’s watchful eyes were singeing the edges of his mind.

There was silence for a while in the shadow of the bed.

‘Spread your knees, sir.’ Flatly from the shadows. 

_No_ , he thought, and did it. Shuffling. One fist pressed into the mattress as he leaned forwards. His face burnt and a bubble of blood rose like liquid fire inside him. 

‘Further.’

He opened them wider, nightgown hitched high, and felt his own breath shakily over his parted lips as he squeezed himself. The bared hollow of his spread thighs seemed to crawl with sweat and his heartbeat filled his body. It shook in his fingertips.

‘Sir,’ said the demon. ‘You are _quite_ delicious.’

‘Shut up,’ said Ciel. A whisper. ‘Don’t you dare to- ah-’

Only the clatter of distant wind, and his own laboured breathing, and the click of slippery flesh in his own grip. The flush of his cheeks was feverish but the sweat on his back was sickeningly cold. His bare knees shivered against the starched sheet and he gasped. 

The sound was sharp, obscene, and Ciel tried to stifle it. He thought he heard the demon whisper something and he turned his head; oh, that hushed amusement-- But it wasn’t words, only a hiss of laughter. Or impatience.

Ripples of sweat in the folds of his tucked-up legs.

Then the lift, a surge in his belly as dizzy as falling and then breathless dim, and his eyes squeezed tight. The heat bloomed over him like a page catching flame. Silence silence silence and a howl of blood in his ears.

Ciel’s knees clenched around his gripping fist, and he sagged. There was a hot spatter in his fingers.

‘Ah, there,’ said the whisper. The bed-drapes moved again as though the wind had drifted in. ‘Quite delectable, that face of yours. If you knew exactly what you were doing to me, I wonder if you would ever have dared, my lord.’

Ciel wiped his nose with his balled fist and began to rub the dripping fingers of his other hand on the crumpled nightgown. ‘Shut up,’ he said. His chest felt damp. ‘You. _You_ \--’

Sebastian’s gloved fingers touched his shoulder and he stopped. ‘Hush,’ said the demon coolly. ‘If you did not enjoy it, perhaps you ought to order me to leave next time. _I_ enjoyed it immensely. You were most obliging, sir.’

‘If you think that was for your benefit--’ Ciel stopped, confused, searching for the words. The beast had done this. With those hungry eyes, that delicate taunting fingertip in the bath. With his silence. His voice. And Ciel had let the creature see him, let him watch, oh gods, and if he’d only controlled himself-- ‘How _dare_ you.’ The butler waited, his hand still resting lightly on Ciel’s shoulder. Ciel couldn’t even shrug it off. ‘You really are perverted,’ he said at last. It was nearly a croak.

‘Really.’ The butler’s voice was very close beside his ear. Dry as a fallen leaf. His breath was warm. A tang like iron. ‘And this surprises you how, exactly?’ Ciel’s sticky hand twisted in his nightgown.

There was a gloved tap under his chin, a small boy’s reward. ‘Goodnight, sir.’ Warm and polite as ever. ‘I trust the wind won’t disturb your sleep.’

And the last of the bed-drapes closed. The gilt crack of candlelight between them shifted, and Ciel heard the door click shut.

He pulled the pillow over his face and his eyes were already hot with tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this far, my jolly tarboys! 
> 
> I appreciate the heck out of every single comment and kudos. Seriously. And I never expected anyone else but me to like this story because hey, I was impudent enough to tag it as smut, and there is instead Much Talking.
> 
> But smut it is, I suppose, because it sure ain't sugarplums. 
> 
> Sebastian's translation of Baudelaire is my own, in all its inadequacy. 
> 
> Until next time (possibly next week) ~behave and eat your carrots, kids.


	4. Valentine's Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ciel eats breakfast, and Sebastian dresses him.  
> And tells his master a story.

Ciel woke up, and wished he hadn’t. But now he was thinking, and he blinked in the dark of his drawn bed-curtains. He couldn’t go back.

Somewhere in the hall outside, a clock struck the quarter in golden strokes. It was still early, then, but impossible to tell with the drapes closed and the window curtains drawn. The grey winter dawn wouldn’t lighten the sky for hours yet. 

And Sebastian would soon be here with his tea. He groaned, very quietly, and turned his face back into the pillow.

If the demon had only done something vile enough, visceral enough to categorise and condemn and punish-- but it had only been his eyes. The lightest of touches. The rest Ciel had done himself, and wouldn’t his servant just _revel_ in his dirty victory.

If Sebastian said something. 

If he said nothing. 

Damnit, there _was_ no easy way. Ciel chewed on his lip. Even if the butler was completely polite he’d still show that faint curl of feline satisfaction he wore when he thought he’d been particularly clever. The same smirk he’d probably had in the dark last night, as he witnessed his master left squirming like a field specimen beneath his clinical inspection.

But it hadn’t been clinical, had it? The butler had watched as much for his own abyssal satisfaction as his master’s discomfiture. Ciel could have met coldness with coldness and fared better. But the demon hadn’t been able to hide the edge in his gaze and Ciel knew what it meant, knew what drew the flame of it: the sight of pain, and the stench of death or sin. 

And it had been sin, that curl in Ciel’s belly. A shudder of shame and indignity and under it, like slime underfoot, the velvety slick of arousal. He had shaken in its tremor as he spread his knees.

Ciel rolled onto his back and pulled the pillow across his face. It had been much too easy to obey. Much too good. Sebastian knew it.

But the demon couldn’t know how that touch on his master’s shoulder afterwards had ached like a humming bell in Ciel’s chest. Didn’t know, must never know.

The bastard’s self-satisfaction was the worst of all. He was so utterly sure of himself and Ciel was sure of nothing at all, least of all his servant. The creature was pure negation. Difficult to grip, shifting endlessly, no more than a thickening of dark shadow that resolved itself sometimes into a neat smile and silent patient hands. Insidious as smoke, creeping through the cracks and keyholes. Testing, waiting. Pausing, tasting.

Behind the beautiful white face, the shuffle of masks-- quick as a flutter of cards in a sharper’s hands-- something showed, but it was beyond the words of men, less a living thing than a tanglement of sins. The creature fed on the filth of mortal agonies. Under the clean service gloves it was only an ache of hunger, a vast and cavernous need. A sweet rot of fleshly corruption. An imperious willpower. A monumental egoism. Ciel sensed its nature even as he was confused by it, baffled and unsettled. 

He pressed his fists into his closed eyes. Today was just a day, another day. There would be many more of them, and he had to live through even his sick shame. 

There was a crisp knock at the bedroom door and he winced.

This would take every shuddering scrap of his determination but he might just manage-- if he could hold himself with composure, steady his breathing. Keep any trace of hesitation from his usual cold expression. Ignore the obvious fact that he had submitted to his demon’s lustful provocation, and the more terrible truth that he had never felt another pleasure equal to it. 

Because if he eased backwards by even a step, the beast would pounce. It was his only certainty.

Ciel opened his eyes and pushed the pillow from his face.

***************************

Sebastian had begun work on the Valentine’s Day luncheon before the first sparrows even ventured into the frosty garden. There were guests coming. Things needed to be presentable. 

He was very nearly whistling in the kitchen.

Bard was poking at a frying pan, making the staff’s breakfast and trying to swallow the widest of his yawns. ‘What time do you reckon I should get the potatoes boiling, Sebastian?’

‘Half-past nine,’ the butler said. He had unwrapped the salmon from its damp muslin already and it lay glistening on the marble slab of the kitchen benchtop while Sebastian shuffled off his tailcoat and began to roll up his shirtsleeves. It was a fine fish, firm and still carrying the sheen of life on its delicate speckled skin. ‘Beef goes in at ten and chicken pies at eleven. Don’t re-stoke the fires, I shall be making sponge cake after that.’

In the staff kitchen next door he heard Finny asking something about the table decorations but Sebastian had stopped listening, and whatever Tanaka said in reply he didn’t hear. The tip of his filleting knife was cleaving the salmon neatly, revealing the tremble of rosy flesh against the blade, and the butler peeled a slab of it from the frail tracery of spine. 

His young master would be awake before long. It was going to be quite a nice day. 

Not quite perfect, no, because enough is never enough. He would go upstairs and witness all the awkwardness of a morning-after without feeling nearly enough satiation himself, but the little aristocrat’s panicked fluttering eyes would have to satisfy him this time.

Soon, though, soon.

The breathy small sound his master had made still hummed in the demon’s body, resounding like a plucked string. The smell of the boy’s hot arousal. His glorious shame and pitiful anger.

A sliver of raw salmon lifted under the knife’s coaxing, sunset-flushed.

Soon, soon.

Bard looked back over his shoulder at the head butler, following the tense line of muscle in the man’s pale bare forearm. Always working, Sebastian was. And never sat to eat with the other servants at the staff table. Bard wanted to put it down to swaggering arrogance or Limey reserve, but it was difficult to resent the man when he held himself to the same daunting standard he demanded from everyone else. It wasn’t Sebastian’s fault he was the fussy type. ‘Are you sure you won’t have something for breakfast? You must be hungry.’

He saw the shrug of the butler’s shoulders. 

‘I am,’ the man said. ‘But I can wait.’

****************************

‘Good morning, young master.’ Sebastian set the tray down and began to pull open the heavy window curtains. There was no sound from within the bed’s blue canopy but the boy was awake, he was certain; he couldn’t hear the regular breaths of sleep. ‘Your tea this morning is an English Breakfast blend, and there is fresh raisin bread, sir.’

‘Good,’ said the voice from the bed, and Sebastian opened the drapes unhurriedly. The earl was propped amongst his pillows, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. 

‘I trust you slept well, sir.’ He said it lightly. It wouldn’t take much to set the boy off, and he could afford to play.

‘Quite well.’ The earl raised his head and looked at Sebastian. ‘You were quite correct about the draughts, though. I want you to take a look at them this afternoon.’ Not a shadow of anything in those cool mismatched eyes except boredom, maybe. The conversation was closed.

‘Excellent, my lord,’ Sebastian said, and turned away to the tea-pot.

The little prick was going to _ice_ him. As haughtily as if it had never happened, as if he had never been caught rutting into his own hand, gasping like a whore. It would have been impressive if it wasn’t so profoundly irritating. 

Sebastian poured the tea, focusing on the drift of steam. The movement of the spoon. The chilly little princeling couldn’t be nearly as comfortable as he gave pretence and he would show himself if his butler would only be patient. 

Did he truly plan to brazen it out against a demon? The fool, the utter fool.

‘Your guests are due just before noon, sir.’ Sebastian handed him the tea-cup. ‘I am sure that you will manage to find yourself a _suitable_ method of entertainment until they arrive.’ He wasn’t subtle with the emphasis, this time.

The boy paused with the tea-cup at his mouth. ‘Undoubtedly. I have a poem to finish writing for Elizabeth.’ He sipped.

Sebastian looked at the wet pucker of those parted lips and felt a prickle under his gloves. He turned away from the bedside to select his master’s outfit.

It was still very early. The demon could concede round one. He had the whole day left to make his master suffer. Pressed linen shirt, and cream silk socks. The small heeled shoes; rosettes today. _Elizabeth_ , by all the poxy choirs of quims-- The tang of the butler’s morning mood was souring quickly.

At the end of the row of little suits in the wardrobe a flash of metal lace caught his eye and he paused, considering. And swept the hanger off the rack.

The earl was wriggling to the edge of the bed as Sebastian laid out his master’s clothing. One bare leg dangled loose. Sebastian tried to ignore the lingering scent of sex on the crumpled nightgown but it was hopeless and his nostrils thrilled traitorously. 

‘Tell Mey-rin to set a fire in my study this morning.'

‘As you please, my lord,’ the butler replied, as the boy’s eyes slid past him to the suit on the bed.

It was quite a pretty one, the deep red of bitten cherries, its velvet folds swallowing the shadows as a rose-petal does. A double-breasted jacket with the cutaway shape of a riding coat. Wide buttoned cuffs, edged in bronze-gilt lace. Stiff little tailored shorts. And a waistcoat in raw silk; same tone, different sheen. 

The boy’s fine dark brows arched. ‘I wasn’t aware it was a costume party.’

Round two. Sebastian set his mouth in a pleasant smile. That is what polite humans do, isn't it, when they feel like gutting each other like animals.

‘You think it inadequate for the occasion, sir.’

‘I think it unnecessarily gaudy.’ The earl’s slim fingers tweaked at the stiff high collar, turning it over in some distaste. The edges were oversewn in gilt thread. ‘I haven’t worn this thing since--’ He paused.

‘The Christmas before last, sir.’

‘It will never fit.’

‘You haven’t grown much, sir.’

A tightening of the soft little mouth. ‘Hopefully the outfits from Miss Hopkins will arrive next week.’

Sebastian turned his head. His master rarely showed any interest in attire, leaving his servant free to organise it. And to indulge in the particular soft delight of dressing the slim little body as he pleased. ‘Yes, sir.’ 

‘Perhaps you can order some proper trousers next time.’

The earl had a point; most young gentlemen his age were easing out of shorts and sailor suits and into the same long trousers their older brothers wore. Sebastian’s eyes dropped to his master’s bare legs as the boy slid from the bed. The frail hollows behind his knees, warm and sweet. Only the merest edge of a sharpened nail would bring blood from that hidden skin. A deeper press would slice, separating glistening flesh from the flexing tendon.

‘I will give it some thought, sir.’ 

_Not a hope in Hades._

The boy was still frowning at the suit. ‘I prefer the blue one. The colour is both sober and presentable.’

‘Of course, sir. It also happens to draw the greatest attention to your eyes, sir.’

The boy’s nose twitched. ‘My wardrobe choices are not based upon vanity.’ _Offended, are we, sir?_ ‘I never even choose the things, anyhow.’

‘Precisely, my lord. Chin up, please.’

And the demon swept the nightgown off over his master’s raised arms. And if he took a little longer than usual shaking out the fresh pair of cambric drawers, the boy said nothing; only rubbed one bare foot against the other and shivered naked, a ripple of gooseflesh over his folded arms.

The pale spigot of his shaft, and the chill-tightened purse beneath. Both nipples sharpened. Glossy, sugar-pink. 

Sebastian tied the waistband ribbon of his master’s drawers, wrists resting lightly on the slim angular hips, and managed to brush his thumb across the boy’s sleepy-soft protuberance in passing.

‘Watch your bloody hands, they’re cold.’ More bored than anything. His master was blinking up at the canopy above. But the fine Indian cotton of his drawers was almost sheer, and the slight movement underneath them didn’t escape Sebastian’s wary glance. 

Round two belonged to the demon, undoubtedly. 

He slipped the linen shirt down over his master’s rumpled head.

‘What flower is that on the breakfast tray?’

‘Daphne, young master.’

‘It’s too strong. It gives me a headache.’

So he would play petulant, would he, and find an excuse to glare at his poor faithful servant. Well. Sebastian didn’t turn his head as he buttoned his master’s ruffled cuffs. The slim wrist was turned upwards, vulnerable across his gloved palm. Blue-veined.

‘I shall dispose of the offending plant as you wish, my lord.’ 

‘Daphne. A variety of laurel, I take it.’

Sebastian raised his brow a fraction. What game was the boy playing at with this one? 

He was trying to show off his Greek. And how delightful to be able to correct him. ‘You would _think_ so, sir,’ he said with pedantic care, holding the pressed shorts for his master to step into, ‘but no. _Daphne odora_ is an evergreen shrub, winter-flowering. Not related to the genus _laurus_ , although your mistake is quite understandable.’

His master seemed unruffled, leaning back against the bed for balance. ‘Named for the same tale, though.’

Sebastian hesitated. ‘Yes, sir. It is a story from the _Metamorphoses;_ Apollo pursues the water-nymph Daphne.’

‘I prefer the one about Helios and Klytia.’ 

A discussion of Ovid was an odd way for his master to step up to round three, but there was something odd about the set of his master’s mouth, too. Tucked in at the corners. Uneasy. The sight of it stirred a slow glide of satisfaction down the back of Sebastian’s neck, and he took his time in buttoning the flies of the little velvet shorts. His fingers pinned the front seam firmly, and the warm twitch of flesh beneath. 

He was rewarded with the sound of a wobbling small breath. No reprimand this time. 

He shot a glance up at the boy and found the wide mismatched eyes settled on him. Clear. Fixed. Not entirely calm.

If this was how his master intended to dance this particular minuet, then he would honour the pace. But if the earl thought he had distracted his butler with this change of subject, he would find himself mistaken.

‘This one is much the same sort of tale, young master.’ Sebastian tucked one fingertip inside the buttoned shorts and ran it around the waistband, settling the shirt beneath. ‘The sun-god gave chase, enthralled by Daphne’s beauty, and she fled from his advances in the habitual manner of maidenly confusion. Entirely understandable for a virgin creature.’

The boy’s eyes flickered. What an avid little audience. Sebastian pretended he hadn’t noticed as he reached for the waistcoat waiting on the bed.

‘It became a hunt, the oldest and wildest of chases, through the forest and down to the river’s edge. Daphne knelt at the water and cried out to the river-god, her father. Golden Apollo was close behind her, and she begged her father for assistance. For deliverance from dishonour at the lustful hands of the sun-god.’ 

The boy was very quiet as Sebastian buttoned the waistcoat across his narrow chest; he might have been holding his breath.

‘And the river-god heard his daughter’s cry. When Apollo reached the maiden on the riverbank, he stretched out his hands to her. He was so very _close_.’ Sebastian stilled his voice, drew the words out softly. He shook out his master’s coat and held it ready, and the boy slid his arms into the silk-lined sleeves. ‘Close enough to touch her skin. Close enough to smell her hair. And her hair became leaves. Her little white toes dug deep into the soil, and her virgin body was sheathed in rough bark. Within Apollo’s very hands she transformed, on the verge of his triumph, and he was denied his pleasure as she became a laurel tree.’

The earl sat down on the bed’s edge, waiting for his socks and shoes. ‘One would almost think you pity the god.’ But the words were a little quieter than Sebastian might have expected from his master. 

Sometimes there is no chase. If the lion lies down in a gentle pretence at sleep, and the lamb proves itself to be more inquisitive than wise.

‘Perhaps,’ said the butler, and he gathered up the slink of ivory stocking in his fingers. The boy slipped his cold curled toes into it. Sebastian looked up and held the blue gaze thoughtfully, as though they were simply two scholars discussing old and beautiful things. Two creatures who understood something of the edges of mythology and the taste of magic. But he lowered his eyes again.

If the boy was sharp enough he would notice his servant’s pupils widened darkly, and Sebastian wasn’t ready for him to see. 

And the boy still thought he had turned the conversation to something _safe_.

‘Apollo was a deity, my lord, beyond all mortal morality.’ Sebastian smoothed the silk stocking around the curved calf of the slim young leg. ‘He desired beauty and he pursued it. Perhaps I envy him, sir. I cannot deny the honesty of his desire.’ 

‘I see,’ said the earl, and it was a trifle breathless. ‘The pursuit of the unattainable.’

‘It is a grand obsession.’ Sebastian was fastening the black band of his master’s garter-band, just above the bare knee. The little stockinged foot dangled at his kneeling thigh. If the demon leaned forward very slightly, it would nudge the tucked-up stir in the crook of his groin. ‘Apollo was neither the first nor the last, sir.’

The earl pointed his toes as he slipped them into the waiting shoe on Sebastian’s knee. One shoe, and the other. ‘Mania,’ he said, and there was a strange tightening around his pretty eyes. _‘ “_ Je t'aime d'autant plus, que tu me fuis _.” ’_

_I love you only more because you flee._

Oh, young master.

‘Indeed,’ Sebastian said. ‘Mania, sir.’ He set the buckled foot down from his knee, and watched as the boy tipped up his pointed chin in expectation. The living blood pulsed sweetly under the rose-soaped skin. 

The butler ran the black silk cravat between his gloved fingers before he began to knot it loosely around his master’s stiff collar. He leaned forwards a fraction, balanced on tensed knees, and the stirring in his own trousers was quite decided.

‘Sebastian.’ Very low. The boy’s dark lashes were downcast.

‘Sir.’ Quietly as he tied.

‘Last night.’

The butler smoothed out the loops of the loose silken bow. Those little lips were parted. ‘Yes, sir.’ His fingers paused, almost touching the boy’s throat. 

‘If you test me again, I’ll whip you like a fucking dog.’

Sebastian looked up at the clear hard eyes. ‘Understood.’ He stood up. Cleared his throat. ‘Sir.’

And he turned away to reach for his master’s eye-patch. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you once again, for every single comment and kudos. It makes me deliriously happy and satisfies my ridiculous praise kink ;)  
> I'm enjoying the heck out of writing this story, but already internally panicking because I only planned on writing four chapters. Then six. And now I kinda don't want it to end...  
> Anyway. Two chapters left. And I'm writing them simultaneously before I post them to ensure that I actually know what's happening at the end of my own story.  
> EDIT: since writing this fic I have been informed that Victorian boys did not wear underwear of any kind. My error is a case of following other fics without checking my own facts-- so I apologise, and in the sequel I amended this. One day I may actually fix it up in here, too.


	5. A Quiet Family Luncheon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ciel finishes his poem, and has visitors.  
> And Sebastian is less than helpful.

Ciel stayed sitting on the edge of his bed until the butler had fastened his eye-patch and picked up the breakfast tray and left him in the silent morning bedroom.

And then he rose abruptly and went downstairs to the study, arms folded tight across his shaking chest.

His nearly-finished poem was in his letter-drawer and he got it out. He looked a moment at his crossed-out lines, and then crumpled the page convulsively. 

_Opalescent eyes_. Good heavens. _Sonorous joy._

Ciel’s stare fixed sightlessly on his desk as he thumbed the sharpened lead of his pencil. It was utterly stupid, this summer world of pastoral balance. Paper lace and Cupids and bluebirds of fucking happiness.

As if he’d ever asked for happiness.

It was not his world. He lived in a mirror-land of inversion, reversal, contradiction. The innocent are punished. The flowers are evil. The only beautiful things are dead. The fair blank pages of his exercise book seemed to mock him blindly, and the open pool in the ink-pot was a glistening eye.

He sat down at the desk, his pencil suddenly moving on the notepaper before he’d even dragged the chair up close. 

********************************

Sebastian’s mind was focused as he worked. _Two pints of cream. Four eggs, separated. Three glasses of sherry. The zest of two moderately sized lemons._

It had been convincing, the earl’s quiet attention to his story.

_A pound and a half of sugar._

And Sebastian had allowed himself to walk too far into the trap.

_The lemon-juice must not be added to the cream when it is warm, and should be well stirred after it is put in._

It was difficult to tell, remembering, the point at which the boy had softened.

_Chill for several hours._

And the point at which his wary mind had closed again.

‘Oi. Sebastian.' Bardroy's white jacket was hovering in the corner of his vision. 'The oven’s ready for those pies.’

‘They’re on the bench there.’ The butler didn’t raise his head. ‘Set the timer, won’t you.’ 

It was going to be a good day. Not for everybody, though.

And Sebastian wiped his gloved hands briskly on his apron. 

***************************

Master and servant met again as the clock struck half-eleven, and Ciel came down the staircase in the foyer. Sebastian was waiting at the door. Had the butler heard a distant crunch of coach-wheels? Ciel didn’t look at him as he passed towards the drawing room.

‘I trust you have finished your poem, sir.’ 

Ciel stopped. There must have been an ink-stain showing on his fingers. The neatly-written poem was folded in his breast pocket, actually, waiting to be slipped into Lizzie’s flowers when she left.

‘It’s completed as well as I can manage,’ Ciel said, more honestly than he’d intended, and he drew his face into a cool frown. He didn’t plan on calling a truce.

‘If I may enquire when your homework will be available to me for assessment, sir.’ The butler was waiting with unreadable patience.

Ciel shrugged. ‘When I'm not busy. Tomorrow, perhaps.’ When he’d had some time to prepare for it. Time to decide if he wanted the demon to see the thing at all. He could always leave it on his desk, but then he wouldn’t be able to watch the beast’s expression. If he showed one. 

‘Sir.’

Ciel sighed. ‘Say it.’

‘I am sure that your hair will meet with the Marchioness’s approval, sir.’

He’d combed it before he came down, awkwardly in front of the bathroom mirror-- on his tiptoes, in fact, to slick the dark fringe back from his eyes. ‘Mhm.’ His black silk eye-patch felt oddly exposed. ‘I wasn’t in the mood to hear another lecture about _decent grooming_ from my aunt. I see you haven’t done anything with yours.’

Sebastian’s smile was quiet, slow-blooming. ‘No, young master. I have always felt that indecency was one of my most useful traits.’

Not now. He didn’t have time for the creature’s mockery. Ciel ignored the butler, flexing his shoulders beneath the tight velvet jacket. He didn’t have time for this uneasiness in his bones, either, or his aunt’s visit. Elizabeth. Making small talk. The beast’s obscure games. Later~

‘Ensure that the tea isn’t late. I shall need three cups at least if I’m to have any hope of enduring this afternoon.’ But it was not entirely true; his pulse jumped as though he’d drunk half a pot of the stuff already.

‘Yes, sir.’ Sebastian’s dark head was tilted, and even Ciel could hear the carriage now, on the last curve of the driveway. ‘If it is any solace, my lord, your appearance is most gratifying.’ The butler licked the corner of his lips with the tip of his pale delicate tongue, and it shivered through Ciel’s legs.

‘I can barely sit in these trousers,’ Ciel said shortly, and froze; unwise to give his butler the satisfaction of ever--

‘Then I would suggest you avoid excitation, sir.’ 

Ciel threw Sebastian a cold look but the butler was already stepping up to open the door, and descending the manor steps outside, and Ciel put his hands in his pockets and tried not to think. It felt so wrong to have visitors. The intrusion upon his house, his mind, the silence in his empty rooms. Better to be alone in this lonely sleeting weather, just he and his servant.

Servants. Plural. Ciel bit his lip.

He fancied he could hear Lizzie’s voice as the carriage pulled up. Probably she was hanging out the open window.

***************************

It took half an hour to get everyone into the drawing room and out of their heavy travel capes and finally blissfully _silent_ with a cup of tea. 

Aunt Frances, keen-eyed and brisk as ever. A sharp peck on Ciel’s cheek, and he endured it.

Lizzie’s high greeting squeal and her tumbled breathless arms around him before her mother could step in. Tsk. Hello, Elizabeth.

The girl Paula, endlessly cheerful and hideously dressed as usual. He avoided looking at her face.

His uncle’s hand, broad and warm and firm. ‘You’re looking well, my boy.’ And the strange sliding glance that people still had sometimes when they saw the Earl of Phantomhive; eyes moving away uneasily to look for someone who wasn’t there. 

Edward, taller than last time. Tall. Green-eyed as Lizzie, and his grip was firmer than his father’s, even. But he fancied himself almost a man, of course, and had something to prove.

The tea was good, as they waited for their lunch to be served downstairs in the conservatory. The drawing room was warm. The butler’s gloves were spotless. The little tea-table was set nicely. No daphne in the crystal vase, Ciel noted, only the speckled wide-petalled hellebores, and sparse branches of hawthorn glistening with spines, and other plants he didn’t know; pale leaf-buds, dark red berries, glossy black ones. Belladonna; Tanaka had told him not to touch it in the garden, once. And was that dogwood?

Hedgerow plants. Herbs and poisons.

‘Oh, this is so lovely, Ciel.’ Lizzie had dragged him off to the sofa under the window, away from her companion and mother and the others at the tea-table, and Aunt Frances seemed to be permitting it today. Valentine's Day. ‘And the flowers you sent me this morning were so _beau_ tiful.’

‘Finer than anything I gave your aunt,’ Lord Midford called over to them with a doggish barking laugh.

Sebastian was still hovering. ‘My young master selected them with the most meticulous deliberation--’

Ciel ignored him. ‘And this is for you, Elizabeth.’ The little jewel-box, the blue enamel brooch, and she opened it with a small squeal. If she was disappointed by the lack of gemstones, she did not show it. ‘Ciel, _Ciel_ , I adore it.’ The bluebird nestled brightly in her palm. ‘It is so pretty, and so--’ She looked up at him, and her eyes were dark with unaccustomed seriousness. Her lace-gloved fingers squeezed his. ‘I shall love it always,’ she said, and for a moment he wondered if she understood something, in some way. What he had wanted to say. 

‘I do hope that you aren’t forgetting the most important gift of all, my lord.’ And as Lizzie turned her head, Sebastian smiled, that dangerous empty smile of his. ‘My young master has written you a poem for the occasion.’

‘No,’ Ciel said, half-rising from the sofa. _No, don’t you sodding dare._ But his butler was not a butler. He was not to be trusted. He was only a smile and white gloves and venomous eyes, politely averted. 

‘Oh, Ciel, you never said! You wrote a poem. But when can I read it?’ Elizabeth’s eyes were wide.

‘My lord Phantomhive is going to read it aloud for you, my lady. He has it tucked in his jacket, folded against his heart.’ The butler bowed at Lizzie’s side, and Ciel could only stare, pulse humming, as Sebastian flicked him a malignant arching look. 

There was no truce today.

Ciel cleared his throat, and his eyes darted sharply to his aunt at the tea-table. Perhaps it was a vague hope that somebody would pull him out of this, come swooping to his aid.

‘Well, I’m sure we should all like to hear a poem,’ said Aunt Frances, folding her hands neatly on her knee. ‘Your father was always scribbling away at things when he was young.’

‘Certainly,’ said Uncle Alexis. ‘Certainly.’

No salvation, no. The only deliverance he could ever trust was standing in silence behind Elizabeth’s chair, a ghost in black livery. Gloved hands clasped, and malicious eyes waiting.

‘Very well, then.’ Ciel steadied his voice. It sounded suddenly high and childish. He was rummaging in his jacket pocket. Clearing his throat. Standing up from the sofa, as if this was some kind of examination. And there was no chance between the hills of Rome that Sebastian was going to be forgiven for this.

‘It’s a sonnet,’ he said, and he didn’t look at his butler. Not at any of them over at the table.

_‘For Elizabeth._

_As April light, as gilded sun her hair_

_And I the helpless bloom that turns its face_

_To follow it, admitting not the snare_

_That tightens slowly, cruelest embrace_

_And harshest sweetness. Free as air she moves_

_But I, deep-rooted in the hungry earth_

_Am bound about with shadow-- she reproves_

_In gentleness, and I degrade in worth._

_For what is left but horror and decay_

_When dying soul succumbs to ruthless fate?_

_Once left deprived of her sustaining Day,_

_I move in darkness to the last checkmate_

_And shield my aching eyes, and turn my sight,_

_Turn back towards the uncreated night.’_

It wasn’t supposed to be like this at all. It wasn’t how he’d wanted it, and Lizzie was looking at him now with emerald eyes that shimmered wetly.

‘Oh, Ciel,’ she said. She stood and flung her arms around his neck, and the tangle of her scented hair was in his mouth, his nose. But her chest was shuddering against his. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘it’s completely beautiful. I’m so sorry.’

‘What for?’ Ciel patted her on the back carefully, keeping his eyes fixed on the carpet. He didn’t dare look up but Aunt Francis was rising from her seat as well, by the sounds of her rustling taffeta skirts.

‘I’m sorry you’ve been sad,’ Lizzie whispered into his shoulder. ‘You’ve been so hurt. I’m _sorry_.’

‘It’s nothing new,’ he said rather drily, but she was gurgling with tears, and the shoulder of his jacket was starting to dampen, and she clearly wasn’t listening and then he tried to tug her arms away, gently, but she wouldn’t budge and then Aunt Francis swept her daughter off him and there, he had a saviour after all.

‘Very fine, my boy,’ Aunt Francis said, and her tight little smile was full of quiet approval. ‘Perhaps a little heavy with morbid over-imagination, but your father always did have a certain strain of sensitivity.’

Ciel felt a light pat on his shoulder as Aunt Frances ushered Lizzie back to the table. ‘Not bad, I s’pose,’ Edward said, his green eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘Not bad for a little fellow. You’ve been reading Ovid, have you?’

‘Some.’ 

‘You want to watch those stories.’ His cousin had all the lofty condescension of a Big Boy who attended a Proper School, and it was almost amusing. ‘I have to warn you, some of them aren’t suitable for children.’

‘Thank you for the warning, Edward,’ Ciel said coolly. ‘I shall instruct my butler to purge the Phantomhive library of its more debauched pornographic volumes.’ And it was worth the risk of Aunt Francis hearing to see his cousin’s sweeping confusion as the bell rang for luncheon downstairs.

And from the corner by the gilded mirrors, his butler’s eyes regarded him with troubling deliberation.

****************************

‘Champagne, Sebastian.’ A murmur, and the butler moves obediently as his master’s guests begin to eat their dessert. Under the shadows of the pale bamboo he is only another shadow, stepping between hanging orchids and the scattering of winter light through the airy conservatory glass. 

The mortals are nearly fully fed, now. He moves, ignored.

Lord Midford is picking at the lemon mousse. Apparently he doesn’t approve of candied citron peel. Barbarian. ‘Do you think we’ll get another frost this week, eh, Ciel?’

Not the _weather_ , unholy Astoroth, the young master has no time for small talk; anyone can see his big blue eye is glazed with boredom already. Trailing over the dishes in front of him, pink lips pressed together, poised spoon hesitant over his empty plate. He nods. He isn’t listening.

‘No, the new one is rather good, though. The Scots are vigorous writers. Bold.’ Edward catches sight of the champagne bottle poised above his glass and tilts his chin at the butler absently. Sebastian fills the glass. _Vigorous_. Who is the little prick trying to impress? Not his father, certainly, the man isn’t exactly an intellectual. Is this for the benefit of his lovely small cousin? 

But the young master’s gaze is settled on his plate.

‘Have you read it yet, Ciel?’ Lizzie leans her elbows on the table. ' _The Master of Ballantrae_. Paula and I are positively in _love_ with the story. It’s so _very_ adventurous, I feel sure you would enjoy it.’

Sebastian does not pause at Paula’s glass. The champagne is an 1884 Dry Imperial, for sod’s sake.

‘It’s a roaring tale,’ says Lord Midford over his own brimming drink. English cherry brandy. He isn’t one for French wines.

‘I haven’t read it yet, no,’ said Ciel. But he is looking at his uncle now, and listening. ‘I did read a rather good detective story lately. _A Study in Scarlet_. A Scottish writer, I believe.’ And he nods across the table at Edward.

The young master likes books. He likes words. He likes to lose himself in his mind, where all things are clear and calm and distant, and the contemptible world of human frailty can be momentarily forgotten.

He enjoyed his butler’s story this morning, didn’t he? Listening. Open. Soft.

Sebastian pauses at Lady Frances’ elbow to top up her champagne glass but she flicks her fingers at him, and he moves on.

He would have liked to add another splash to Lizzie’s glass, but her mother is watching him much too sharply. He moves on again.

And a slow splash of champagne in his master’s glass, and the earl doesn’t even turn his head. He is eating a dish of lemon mousse now, lingering a little too slowly over the cold spoon against his tongue. The unctuous lap of cream. Oh, he can pretend he despises his mortal body, but the boy craves sweetness.

And Sebastian feels his mouth settle into a sugar-crisp smile. 

************************

‘And that’s when I said you can ruddy well _wait_ for your money.’ The tip of Uncle Alexis’ fine nose was just faintly pink. There was no hiding it, not on that ruddy Midford skin.

Ciel sucked the silver spoon thoughtfully. The dessert was a ripple of zest and cream, delicately balanced against the hissing champagne, and much as he wanted to push it away for the sake of those watchful eyes behind him, he didn’t. Couldn’t. No point in punishing himself. Another bite.

The baize door to the servant’s hall thumped open and Bardroy leaned around it, his anxious eyes darting past the earl. 

‘Oh, uh, I thought I ought to come and--’

A sigh from behind Ciel’s chair. ‘What?’ 

‘Problem.’

‘Faex,’ Sebastian whispered with startling sharpness, and was gone.

Lizzie was talking about Easter, now, and the a _dor_ able little chicks that were hatching in her garden at home. Ciel sipped his champagne, eyes fixed ahead, but he wasn’t paying attention. Something had bothered his butler. There was something very wrong in the kitchen.

Admittedly there usually was, between the servants’ combined penchant for pyromania and inane clumsiness, but Ciel’s stomach began to fold itself smaller and colder. If there was a threat upon the house, he’d be the last to know. Sebastian told him nothing. If he was lucky, he might find a rifle-casing in the deep carpet of his library later. Unless it was something bigger, worse, beyond the demon’s power of distraction and repair, like the smoking ruin of the Phantomhive kitchen earlier this week. It had taken Sebastian almost a day to set right.

If this was important. If it was something he ought to know about. He couldn’t trust the demon to tell him anything.

‘Ciel, you never did tell me. When we came to _visit_ you the other day and you were out. Paula and I had to sleep here. The maid said you were travelling. Where did you _go_ ? Was it _nice_ there?’

Elizabeth’s swinging golden voice. Her utter innocence. 

Ciel felt the bubble of the sharp wine in his stomach, and his cousin’s face seemed suddenly blurred.

_I was at Kelvin Manor with my butler, and we burnt it to the ground with all the innocent souls within._

_And as you slept unmindful in my house, it was attacked, and the maid who laid your tablecloth today cut down my enemies from the rooftops._

_And the explosion that woke you in the night and destroyed my kitchen was not an accident._

_And I shot a man in the heart._

_And when my demon held me close, he smelt of blood and bile and hunger and I liked it._

_And there was a girl with a loud bold laugh and she called me by a name that wasn’t mine. She saw my true face, and she died. I gave the order for it._

Elizabeth was waiting, her hands clasped together on the tablecloth.

‘I went north on business,’ said Ciel, ‘and it’s February. Nothing is nice at this time of year.’

He felt sick.

‘The rain should come back over this evening,’ Uncle Alexis was saying. ‘A thaw.’

‘Oh, and the _daff_ odils are all coming up now.’

But Ciel was draining his glass and pushing back his chair and standing, and the grate of his chair on the conservatory tiles seemed unnaturally loud. He ducked under the waving pale bamboo towards the hallway. Lizzie hadn’t noticed. Aunt Frances had, but she could think what she liked; she’d think he needed to piss, probably. And he did. But that wasn’t where he was going. 

It was cooler in the hallway, out of the hothouse humidity and the sweet smell of cakes and flowers and Lizzie’s perfumed skin. Some of the buzz behind his eyes seemed to resolve itself. He didn’t hesitate at the junction under the golden mirrors, and turned into the bare service corridor towards the kitchens. 

An unfamiliar echoing place. No wallpaper, only plaster and whitewash and worn floorboards. He only came down here to speak to Tanaka sometimes. To review the repairs the other evening.

And Sebastian was clattering back up the corridor towards him, still pulling on his tailcoat over his white shirt and crisp waistcoat, and Ciel stopped. So did the butler.

‘You have guests, my lord. You have no need to be here.’ Sebastian was tugging his collar straight.

‘I thought there was a problem.’ 

Sebastian pushed past him briskly, towards the service stairs, and Ciel found himself trotting to keep up with the butler’s long-legged pace. ‘Nothing of any importance, young master.’

‘I believe that is for me to judge.’

Sebastian stopped at the top of the narrow wooden stairs that led back towards the main wing. The cold daylight through the bare window showed his colourless face. ‘Sir,’ he said, and it looked like a flare of impatience around his nostrils. ‘It was a matter of a burning sponge cake. I believe it is entirely within my power to manage.’

‘Oh,’ said Ciel. ‘I see.’

‘You wondered where I was, sir.’ 

‘I needed to get away from the table.’ Coldly. And that was true, too. ‘You’re smiling quite unpleasantly.’

‘This is my habitual expression, sir.’

‘My point exactly.’ Ciel turned away and began to descend the staircase. ‘I would like you to stop it.’

An echoing step behind his shoulder. ‘I apologise if my levity is inappropriate, my lord.’ 

‘Of course it’s bloody inappropriate. I have no cause to be particularly pleased with you, today.’

‘Ah,’ said the butler, ‘perhaps you were unhappy with the quality of your tea this morning, sir.’

Ciels stopped and looked back up at Sebastian. The butler’s face had that indecipherable focus again. ‘You still think you got off unpunished, don’t you?’

‘I am willing to accept any action that my master sees fit to--’

‘That wasn’t my question.’

Sebastian looked down at him with a crease between his fine brows. ‘I am aware of that, young master.’

‘Then answer me.’ Ciel felt his voice sharpen. ‘No lies.’

The demon’s lean face was impassive. ‘Well then, sir. I cannot tell whether or not you plan to castigate me, but the subject is of little personal importance because I doubt that you are capable of inflicting any corporal punishment that can cause me real discomfort.’

Ciel’s hands felt very cold. ‘I see. You are not afraid of me.’

The demon bowed with deliberation. ‘Not remotely, sir.’ 

And Ciel’s head hummed in bitter fury. ‘You dog,’ he breathed. ‘You arrogant prick.’

‘Tsk. Language, sir.’

‘You _truly_ think you’re as powerful as all that.’ 

‘I fail to see how you can doubt it, sir. You know what I am capable of.’

‘I can have you cut to pieces.’ Ciel folded his arms and gripped at his jacket, crumpling it in dampened fingers. He was trying to keep his voice steady. It wasn’t working.

‘And you do, with great frequency, my lord.’

Ciel paused breathlessly, watching the unblinking black of Sebastian’s darkened eyes. 

The bastard was right. There was nothing Ciel could do to him that was worse than the demon endured already. 

Sebastian had been cut and burned and beaten in his service. He faced endless pain and danger, long empty years of ravenous waiting. He patrolled the house through sleepless midnights. He carried his master out of flame and blood, held lightly in his arms. He was bodyguard and attack-dog, butler and driver and chef and protector. 

He did everything. He was everything. 

‘I think that’s foolish of you.’ Ciel heard his own voice, small and cold. ‘I think you should know me better than that.’

‘And who are you, sir?’ The demon had no politeness in his steady gaze.

‘I am the master of this house.’ Ciel held his chin very high. The beast would not stare him down. ‘I am _your_ master.’

‘And you have never yet had need to chastise me, my lord.’ Sebastian bowed again, sharp as pressed linen. ‘I have reason to pride myself upon my service.’

‘This time is different.’ 

‘How exactly, young master.’ Not a question. 

‘You betrayed my confidence.’

‘The Lady Elizabeth would have read your poem eventually, sir.’

‘I’m not speaking about the poem.’

‘I know, my lord.’ And Sebastian’s lips were tight with the effort of suppressing his harsh amusement. ‘I hardly think you had any trust invested in me, sir.’

Ciel’s head felt feverish. Dizzy. ‘You made no attempt to restrain yourself.’

‘Nor did you, as I recall, sir.’

‘You--’ Ciel stopped. Sebastian’s eyes seemed hot. Nearly aflame with poisonous delight.

‘You must be very blind or very foolish, young master, if you believe you can flaunt that impertinent small cock of yours without some _heated_ interest on my part.’

‘You--’ Ciel opened his mouth and closed it again. It was difficult to breathe. His pulse was an echo in his temples.

‘I made you uncomfortable, sir,’ Sebastian said, and his level voice was hatefully quiet. ‘Perhaps that is what you are attempting to say.’

Ciel looked at him in silence. Then he unfolded his arms and moved back up the staircase. One step, and he was eye-level with the crisp knot of Sebastian’s black tie. The demon turned his calm face to follow him. Another step, and Ciel met the dark-lashed gaze. His ribs seemed to be shaken by his heartbeat. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘And that was your intention?’

‘Amongst others.’ Sebastian didn’t blink.

‘And you are pleased with yourself?’

‘It turned out much as I expected.’

‘Did it, now?’ Ciel was breathing deeply. It was only words, he could manage this. Words cannot hurt. There was no need at all for his chest to be aching. ‘You find me predictable.’

‘I find you human, sir.’ Sebastian’s tone had the faint mockery of an insult.

‘I _am_ human,’ Ciel said. Quick little words like jabs of a sabre. ‘And if you despise me for what I cannot change, it makes you quite as vile as you think I am.’

‘You already knew I was vile, my lord.’ It nearly sounded as though Sebastian was growing bored, but the hot colour of his eyes was darkening with his flexed pupils. ‘There are no surprises here.’

Ciel reached out his hand and grasped the front of the butler’s trousers. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I think we know each other much too well for that.’ He curled his fingertips into the warm flesh and Sebastian’s lips parted sharply. 

‘Sir.’ Very quietly.

‘Do we not, Sebastian?’

‘Sir.’ Sebastian’s eyes were torrid, black, and although his breath was steady it was much too slow.

Ciel slid his hand a little lower between his servant’s legs, breathless himself. His chest buzzed as though something small and frantic was fluttering. And there it was, loose within the butler’s trousers, a swing against his palm. ‘You disagree?’

‘I may have been mistaken, my lord.’ 

The swell beneath his touch was hot and soft and more than his small handful. It stirred like a sleeping creature, and Ciel laid his other hand on Sebastian’s chest to steady himself as he ran his fingertips lightly down the butler’s thigh. Sebastian still met his gaze with steadiness but the line of his jaw was tight.

‘Do you like the feel of this, Sebastian?’ The hidden softness of the demon’s body was a shiver in Ciel’s belly. A length of warmth. The delicious fever of it.

‘Yes, sir.’ The butler answered coolly enough. He was managing well. Do grown-ups blush? Do demons?

‘You are bound to truthfulness.’

‘Evidently.’

‘You are bound to obedience.’

‘Assuredly.’

Ciel pressed his hand against the heated flinch. ‘I don’t see how you can be so very powerful, then.’ He felt the fluttering response, a stiffening through the fine woollen fabric, and he ran his hand back up it again. Trying to move smoothly. Trying not to show the trembling that had seized his legs. ‘You must get rather tired of being told what to do.’ 

‘You can’t imagine.’ Sebastian’s eyes narrowed a fraction.

Ciel didn’t miss it. ‘I very possibly could,’ he said. ‘I think you might be surprised by the extent of my imagination. Overactive, apparently.’

The butler didn’t answer this time, only leaned his gloved hand against the whitewashed wall. His breaths looked light and calm again. But Ciel didn’t look away from Sebastian’s face, or the slow blink of the demon’s eyes.

Long strokes with his fingertips, steadily, an odd angle as he leaned in from the step above Sebastian’s. It was impossible that he was doing this, but he was; the press of his hand, his servant’s body, so close to him, and this time he wasn’t being carried high against that waistcoat or restrained by that gloved touch. Not curled tortuously against his demon in the circus girl’s clothes-chest. 

The dizzy hum in his chest was worse than champagne.

The shaft tucked at Sebastian’s thigh was lifting under the black wool and it was long, and stirringly warm, and Ciel could feel a rising flush along his own throat. His cheeks. His grip on the butler’s waistcoat tightened, but he brushed feather-light down there. Light must be better, if you don’t want to make it easy. ‘You think yourself powerful,’ he whispered.

‘Am I not, sir?’ Sebastian’s hand against the wall curled slightly.

‘You have no power over me.’

‘I am aware, sir.’ And Sebastian breathed out, a luxuriating shudder, and the sound of his pleasure made Ciel’s body ache. The thought that he’d roused the creature into this flare of desire thrilled him. Thundered in his blood.

‘You still believe you can make people do whatever you want.’

‘No, young master.’ The demon’s mouth curled. Beautifully, abhorrently. ‘I cannot make anybody do a thing they do not desire already.’ And he pushed very slightly into Ciel’s hand. 

Ciel grasped through the fine wool and dug in his thumbnail. 

‘Young master.’ Sebastian’s thin nostrils flared like an animal’s. ‘Tell me what you want.’ 

His eyes looked wet.

Ciel squeezed as hard as he could and they both seemed to breathe in together. ‘I want sponge cake,’ he said, and let go. 

His buckled shoes were noisy on the staircase as he clattered down and crossed the hall towards the conservatory, and he shoved his shaking hands deep in his pockets and didn’t look back.

  
  
  
  
  



	6. Votary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone finally leaves Ciel alone, and Sebastian tells him another story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are~ the final chapter! 
> 
> Seriously. I couldn't have done this without your encouragement and interest and damn nice comments, and I'm honoured. Flustered, but honoured!  
> And I hope you enjoy this final instalment.

Sebastian heard the echo of his master’s footsteps fall away, and even as he adjusted his trousers he didn’t miss the sound of the little stumble on the bottom step. The boy could scarcely walk straight, and it wasn’t half a flute of Moët that had sent him reeling.

The demon felt a curious surge of satisfaction beneath the sharp insistence of his ruffled cock; the child evidently hadn’t planned to enjoy his wicked groping quite so thoroughly. 

And neither had his servant, actually. Sebastian admitted that to himself with a silent growl. But the little hand had been so warm and wary and soft, up until it wasn’t, and that edge of thumbnail in his flesh had been the best of all. That defiance in his master’s eye. Those cheeks shame-flushed, eager-blushing, lustful wet mouth agape and he’d just _walked off,_ prim as plums.

Oh, he _was_ a worthy master.

Sebastian tried to shake the heat from his bones with a shiver, as a bird shakes a fight from its wings. As a dog sheds a rain-drenching. And the demon wasn’t sure quite what he’d just received; taunt or tease or punishment. Invitation. All of them. None. The delicious little thing downstairs was probably unsure, himself. 

Sebastian shivered again, and made his way quietly down to the conservatory. He was still distractingly heated, half-hard and annoyingly warm beneath his starched collar, but dissatisfaction was the acid in his blood now. After long enough bound in service to this precious wretch, another thorn in his aching flesh would make very little difference. 

The boy was seated stiffly at the table when Sebastian re-entered; picking at his dessert, his pointed face as flushed and sullen as a little rose above his rosy-coloured jacket. Sebastian did not expect a glance from his master, and did not receive one as he cleared the table with Mey-rin, while the Marquess told some interminable tale about a horse.

Or even when he presented the sponge cake-- salvaged, magnificent-- and settled a wobbling cream-slathered slice of it on his master’s plate.

Not as he brushed up the crumbs that Lady Elizabeth’s companion had scattered across the tablecloth, or retrieved the Marchioness’s fallen teaspoon, or gathered up Lord Edward’s napkin, still warm from the boy’s lap.

Not even when Sebastian hovered, holding coats and fetching umbrellas and bowing at the door in the gusting twilight.

Only when Elizabeth was leaving did his master look at him. When Elizabeth hugged her fiancée again at the carriage door-- ignoring her mother’s cluck of disapproval, her brother’s glare-- and Ciel allowed her, turned his face to his cousin’s and allowed her to kiss his cheek, entirely too close to the corner of his mouth. And he kissed her _back,_ his lips on her simpering blushing face, and caught Sebastian’s eyes in passing. And the boy was nearly smiling.

 _Oh, young master._

The demon clasped his gloved hands tightly behind his back.

 _You stand at the chasm’s edge, and you wave across the void at me._

****************************

Ciel stiffened his spine as the boom of the front doors echoed through the marble foyer. 

He’d made it back to the lunch-table after _that_ \- whatever the deuce that _was_ \- and managed another two hours of sitting there, kicking the table-legs and wishing everyone would just go home, but now the coach was a departing rattle on the road below and he could hardly breathe.

‘Young master,’ said Sebastian pleasantly behind him, and Ciel curled up his fingers in his pockets.

‘Sebastian,’ he countered coolly, and the name seemed strange in his mouth. He didn’t turn. ‘We waited almost twelve minutes between the tea and the cake this afternoon. Not ideal, I think you’d agree.’

‘My deepest apologies, sir.’ The butler’s voice was clear, bright. ‘There was a minor disruption to my schedule.’

‘Really, I should have thought you’d be able to manage a thing like that.’ Ciel shot Sebastian a glance as he turned on his heel towards the staircase, and the demon’s lean pale face was indecipherable. ‘I expect efficiency, not excuses.’

‘Of course, sir.’

Ciel’s hands were still hot with the memory of his servant’s body and he gripped the banister as he ascended. There would be no truce. It was Sebastian’s turn to move, and if he chose to unsheath his claws-- 

It had been an imprudent decision to provoke the demon so plainly. Or to let himself enjoy it so helplessly. 

And Ciel’s boot kicked the step as Sebastian spoke again.

‘Your sonnet was quite interesting, young master.’

Oh, a change of subject. But it never really was, with Sebastian, only the same thing in different words. Ciel tried not to pause. He didn’t glance back. ‘So it meets with my servant’s approval, does it? Remind me to feel honoured.’

‘Your allusion to Klytia and Helios was clever, although the metre in the twelfth line was slightly flawed, sir.’

‘Indeed.’ Ciel stopped and turned his chin coldly towards his servant, who still stood at attention beneath the chandelier below. ‘Occasionally one must sacrifice form for intention.’

‘I fear you also sacrificed intention for effect, sir.’ Sebastian looked up at him, unwavering. ‘The assignment required that you express a personal emotion, not indulge in morbid over-imagination.’ The words seemed to linger mockingly. 

How does one fight off a shadow? It slides under doors. It pools in corners.

‘I did what was _required_ of me.’ Ciel narrowed his eyes and instilled a shot of mockery himself. He could play along with the demon’s affectation of a thoughtful teacher, but the beast knew who gave orders, and who obeyed. ‘I followed my instructions. We spoke of honesty, I think.’

‘We spoke of love, sir.’ Sebastian’s gaze was steady. ‘We spoke of many things, and I cannot help but observe that you chose a rather dangerous sort of love to immortalise.’ 

‘Dangerous?’ Ciel bit hard at the fleshy inside of his lip. ‘I was applying my research diligently.’ The sting in his mouth was barely a distraction. Against the ringing in his head it was almost a relief.

When he had been very small and skinned his knees out in the garden, his mother had swept him up into her lap and cooed and kissed him. Sometimes he had been comforted and sometimes he’d strained against her, restless. But the grazes had always hurt, and he’d eyed them with wary fascination. Nudged the mess to watch the seep of his own blood through broken skin. 

‘ _Philia_ scarcely appeals to me,’ he said, and he managed to keep the words steady. ‘ _Eros_ is something of a tasteless joke. I thought perhaps _mania_ might be a more interesting source of inspiration.’

And here he was, doing it still. Pulling open the edges of his wounds; desperate, weary, waiting for the demon’s cool inspection.

‘Admirable, my lord.’ Sebastian’s gloved hands were tucked neatly behind him. ‘But poetic inspiration was not the point of the assignment I set you. It is the imagery that confuses me, particularly after you denounced Baudelaire as unsuitable for your fiancée's maidenly mind. Do you ask me to believe that your self-expression was authentic, sir?’

‘Of course it was authentic. I was describing, and not merely demonstrating a concept.’ Ciel could hear himself angered, stumbling. _Be silent,_ he wanted to say to the demon. _Speak plainly. Leave me be._ He let out a small shaky breath. _Come closer._ He hadn’t expected the beast to make it easy for him, not today, not any day, but that level gaze transfixed him. He rubbed his hand slowly on the railing as he spoke. ‘It wasn’t academic. I was referring to myself.’ 

‘Indeed.’ There was subtle contempt in Sebastian’s voice, and his face was blank, utterly blank. ‘In that case, my lord, you either settled on the wrong subject matter or the wrong recipient.’

Ciel’s chest seized. A twist of airless chill, the panic that took him when he’d run too far or woken too soon or heard certain words, a certain note from his butler’s lips. You cannot fight a shadow. It lingers behind your eyes. It finds the keyholes.

He gripped the railing tight. ‘I wrote it for Elizabeth. How she receives it is none of my concern.’

‘Lady Elizabeth seemed quite pleased with it, sir.’ And though Sebastian straightened neatly and cleared his throat, Ciel knew once again the subject of conversation had not been changed. Only shifted.

‘Indeed.’ _Elizabeth sees what she wants to see. And you know it._ But no, Ciel wouldn’t allow the demon a chance at even a moment’s solidarity against Elizabeth, against his family. The world.

‘And I think her displays of affection were received with less indignation than usual, my lord.’

‘Hardly. I saw the look Aunt Frances gave her.’

‘I was only watching you, sir.’

Sebastian’s hands were still tucked quietly behind his back but his eyes, his eyes were strange. It was displeasure and _scorn_ , damn his arrogance, and something-- not jealousy, no. Not jealousy, surely. 

‘Oh,’ Ciel said. _Oh?_ Within his buckled shoes he curled his toes. Uncurled. ‘It would seem that my behaviour vexed you.’ Sharply.

‘Not exactly.’ But for a brief moment the demon’s mouth looked more savage than Ciel could ever have hoped. 

He raised his brows at Sebastian, an amiable semblance of innocence. ‘I shouldn’t have thought you were so easily disconcerted.’

‘Only taken aback, young master. That makes two surprises you have given me today.’

And Ciel had planned to meet that stare quite steadily when it came- and he’d known it was coming, had been braced for it as the front doors shut. But his face was heating as he looked back down at his butler, who was tugging his silver watch from its fob pocket with quick slim fingers.

‘A quarter past five,’ murmured Sebastian at the clock-face, and Ciel coloured deeper. He was being dismissed by his own butler.

‘I don’t intend to explain myself.’ He glared as the demon tucked the watch away again and started up the staircase towards him. The patter of Sebastian’s toe-tips on the polished steps was sharp as rain on glass. ‘I do not owe my servants an explanation of my-- of anything.’ Ciel was faltering. It was difficult to find words. 

‘I am not asking my lord for an explanation,’ Sebastian said, and stopped on the step just below him. His pale face was set pleasantly, without a shadow left of that sharp displeasure; again, always, a shuffle of masks-- ‘I merely require an assurance that it won’t occur again.’

‘Elizabeth is my fiancée.’ Ciel raised his face stiffly to the butler. ‘You can spare me a lesson in etiquette.’

‘My objection is not to the improper etiquette, sir. Sometimes one must sacrifice form for intention, as you have informed me.’ Sebastian’s voice was clear as a struck bell. ‘And I intend to spare you very little, my lord.’ 

Ciel opened his mouth to speak but stopped, stammered, as the butler gripped his chin. ‘Don’t.’ The gloved hand was strong and clawed and he batted at it furiously. ‘ _Don’t,_ ’ he said again, but Sebastian’s face was much too close now and he wondered for a burning moment if the demon planned to kiss him, planned to press that fine hot bitter mouth against the spot he’d let his cousin kiss-- 

‘I don’t think you have ever expected clemency at my hands, sir.’ The fingers clenched tighter. 

‘No,’ Ciel said, and he looked up at Sebastian’s eyes, the darkening topaz irises and the black immensity. There was a hum like a headache, like bees. ‘Nor asked for it.’ 

‘No.’ Sebastian smiled. It was not a beautiful smile. ‘No, not yet, sir.’ 

And this time Ciel pulled away from Sebastian’s hand and it was hard to breathe, hard to see beyond that cold pleasant face. ‘I will be reading in the study,’ he said, and it sent an echo as far as the painted ceiling. ‘I don’t require any dinner. And don’t speak to me again this evening.’

He put his wrist to his mouth, shaking, and as he turned away he only saw Sebastian’s eyes, and they glinted ruinously bright.

****************************

How lovely. 

How lovely; and what a curious tremor his master had given. Quick breath, close enough to smell, and his little hand twisting on the banister. No line of his body could hide his horror, his desire.

Ah, this. This was pleasure, a thrill like fresh blood over his tongue.

The demon sighed slowly as he made his way down the silent corridors towards the steaming bustle of the evening kitchens.

_To stroke the boy to softness and then pierce him._

Porcelain tea-cups to wash. Three fowls to pluck. Tomorrow’s bread-dough to mix. 

_To tear him into a quiver, and lick the wound with gentleness._

At the marble pastry bench, he tied a clean apron around his hips with absent care. 

_Another taste of this might be dangerous._

_Might almost be happiness._

****************************

In the study Ciel sat at the low-glowing hearth, wedged into his armchair. His knees were pulled up to his chin and although his eyes felt glossy-dry with flames, it wasn’t the same fire he was watching. Not the same heat on the back of his hands. The same long dangerous eyes, though, always, never far from fire in his mind, or blades or fear and the screaming of things that should be dead.

He tried. He put down the book he hadn’t been reading anyway and stretched out his legs. Crossed them, and folded his hands upon his chest, his fingers steepled. And it helped, as it always did, and his thoughts felt clearer; he could turn to mundane things. He reviewed the day and ran back through his family’s conversations and all in all-- generally speaking-- it hadn’t been an utter waste of an afternoon.

Elizabeth had liked the poem, apparently. 

And Sebastian had understood it. 

And he’d cornered Sebastian on the staircase and been fool enough to _show_ \-- show his mind. Show his cards. Show anything at all, it was all a risk, anything you uncovered before the quiet malice of his gaze. There was always risk.

But the feel of him, that soft stirring, the slow shudder of the beast’s body, and his own-- 

Ciel pushed his fists into his aching eyes.

He could hardly trust his own meticulous game today, the check and counter-check that moved their days like clockwork. Simpler to overturn it, a child in a tantrum, and burn the game-board. 

But it was the only thing that held him here at all, at the edge of a collapsar’s void.

He tucked his head against the sturdy wing-back of his chair and his eyes turned back to the fire. Never far away, the uneasy dancing flames. A squirm in his belly like worms. Like cold desire. Chin-deep in his bath, half-sleeping, and the lap of warm blood at his lips. The stench of his own hair, smoky. Powder-shot, house-blaze, death pyre, bonfire, knives and bones and bruises and the grip of gloved fingers strong at his collar, pulling him to his feet. And off his feet, and into the fire itself.

****************************

It was well past ten before Sebastian had finished shutting down the kitchens and locking up the silverware and found his master in the study, with his book abandoned and his rumpled head resting lightly in the angle of the armchair as he slept.

The boy’s dark lashes fluttered. His cheeks were too chilly to be sleep-flushed, and his brow was creased in a frown. The pink mouth pursed uneasily, and parted with a breathy little whistle. And then the curled legs shifted and Sebastian saw the swell beneath the shorts, the strain of the plummy velvet over his master’s sleepless arousal.

_Oh, helpless small sinner._

He sighed, delighting. 

If he pressed his thumb to it, just a touch. If he trailed a claw down the arching bare throat. 

And the boy's hand curled, uncurled, restless in his lap, flung out across the chair-arm and he cried out. 

His young master was dreaming, and it was a nightmare; some monstrous iniquity from the vast bowels of Hell, some horror the child had known or done or dreaded, and his little cock was nearly wet with it. 

And that was all one needed to know about the Earl of Phantomhive, his butler mused. 

He bent low over his master’s chair.

*********************************

‘My lord.’ 

The touch on his wrist was light but the boy drew back from it.

‘Sir.’

Ciel heard the voice through the heat wavering in front of his eyes. The scream of broken faces was too loud to be heard, beyond hearing, only the shimmer in his head, now. Living shadow, dead flesh. And his demon smelt of iron and wood-smoke. A hungry mouth bent over his own. His skin shivered hot.

He stirred, his eyes half-open, and the butler’s folded hands were a cloud of white in his blurred vision.

‘You cannot sleep in your chair, sir.’

Ciel closed his eyes again and crossed his arms tightly over his chest. ‘That is obviously untrue,’ he said. But it was hoarse, and he had to lick his lips.

Sebastian sighed. ‘You _must_ not, sir.’

‘And now you presume to give me orders.’

‘If I had known you had fallen asleep, I would have sent you to your bed. I thought you were reading, sir.’ The butler’s voice shifted direction as he knelt in front of the chair. ‘It was most remiss of me.’ His voice sounded soft.

Much too soft, and Ciel opened his eyes, blinking. Frowning through the grit of his eyelids. Sebastian’s face was calm, a churchyard saint’s, some pale smooth thing made out of marble. 

No touch of irony around his mouth. More serious than anything.

When had the creature called a truce? 

Ciel sighed, tired. ‘You put poison on the table today.’ Not what he had planned to say, but his mind felt slow, still catching up with here and now and the clock on the mantelpiece chiming half-past ten.

‘Sir?’ The butler seemed amused. Puzzled.

‘Belladonna. I saw the berries.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Sebastian sighed, his mouth relaxing. ‘ _Atropa belladonna_. Beautiful Death, I think it is named in human folklore. I did not guess you were so partial to botany, my lord.’

Ciel looked up at the demon. ‘It pays to know danger when I see it.’

‘Of course, sir.’ Sebastian seemed to consider. ‘A careful analysis of risk is what has enabled you to survive. I hope my choice of decoration was not inappropriate, young master; there is little enough to decorate the tables in winter, and I thought my lord might be a little tired of daffodils. When there is no sweet blossom to find, we sometimes turn to dangerous fruits.’ The butler tilted his sleek dark head, poised bird-like. ‘You must come to bed, sir.’

The very thought of his bare cold bed, the pillow still heavy with last night’s dreaming; no. He was warm in his chair here, and the fire was still bright, and there was a pleasant stir between his legs. ‘I don’t want to,’ Ciel said. He hadn’t meant to say it, and now he sounded like a sulking child.

He found himself swung lightly from the chair, the ridge of the demon’s lean arms firm behind his knees and shoulders. Pressed close against his servant’s collar.

‘I managed to find some twigs of dogwood for the table, too. The red berries, not the black. I wonder if you saw, sir.’

‘I wasn’t paying attention.’

Sebastian smelled good, a crisp hot smell that always reminded him of freshly ironed shirts, starched and clean. Ciel turned his face away from it as his butler carried him slowly from the study. Nice to be carried, actually, and be spared from walking up four sets of stairs. Although it wouldn’t take much to install a hydraulic elevator somewhere in the East Wing. Next year.

‘The Greeks called it _kerasós,_ for cherry. The timber is dense, my lord. Heavy enough to sink in water. It was wrought into spears, and javelins, and the cross of Christ. It was sacred to Hecate long ago, when witches remembered her. A most fascinating creature, sir; the moon-goddess, mistress of ghosts and graveyards.’

They were in the hallway, passing under the long row of age-darkened portraits; ancient paintings, heirlooms; conjured by the demon in a day. Ciel looked at the distant faces slowly. Too late now to decide he wasn’t speaking to his butler this evening. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you were overly fond of gods,’ he said.

‘Some of them, my lord. The very old ones, and the very questionable ones. Our territories occasionally overlapped.’ The butler seemed to smile. ‘The votaries of Hecate left bowls of milk out in the forest for the moon-goddess to drink.’ It could almost have been wistfulness, that low note.

‘She was a cat, I suppose.’ Stiffly. But it was refreshing to hear the butler’s quiet rambling, with no edge of sharpness. The demon never spoke of these things. Of himself, of his other selves. 

‘Not a cat, sir,’ the demon said, and he sounded amused. ‘The sacred beasts of Hecate are black dogs.’ Sebastian really was much too fond of the sound of his own voice. ‘Shall I tell you a story, young master?’ As they turned the corner on the dark landing. As if he hadn’t been already. ‘The bark of the dogwood tree was used for another piece of magic, most ingeniously. There was a king called Midas, sir.’

‘I know of him. The golden touch.’

‘Indeed.’ Sebastian’s gloved fingers shifted around Ciel’s shoulder. ‘The very same. But this is a different story, my lord. Midas tied a knot from a delicate strip of dogwood bark, a very complicated knot indeed. It was in a temple, and it was tying the iron axle of an ox-cart to a marble pillar.’

‘That makes no sense whatsoever.’

‘Ah. Midas was very attached to this particular ox-cart, sir, as it had once belonged to his father. The man had been a peasant, and was crowned king, and his son gave the cart as a gift to the deities who watched over his family’s fate. The knot was a symbol of the unspeakable name of the Unspoken God, and an oracle decreed that anyone who could untie this most clever knot would conquer all the kingdom.’

‘Who is the unspoken god?’

‘That is not a suitable question for a polite young gentleman, sir.’ Sebastian turned his head and his lips pressed very close by Ciel’s ear for a moment. ‘But you possibly know the name of the man who solved the knot.’

Ciel did not answer, and Sebastian continued. The hallway up here was lit only by the dim gas-lamps at the end, and Sebastian’s face was nearly invisible in the shadow. He walked sure-footedly, though, silent on the carpet, and his hand cupped Ciel’s shoulder lightly. ‘His name was Alexander, and he wished to be king. He came to the temple and looked at the sacred knot. And he could not tell the beginning from the end, the left from the right. It was endless, a snake that swallowed its own tail.

‘Alexander was clever, as only a hungry mortal can be clever. He was impatient and clear-thinking. So he pulled the lynch-pin from the ox-cart’s axle and dragged off the wooden wheel; and the knot was no longer fastened through the wheel, and came undone of its own accord.’

Ciel sniffed. ‘I thought he cut it with his sword.’

‘Oh, young master.’ Sebastian paused at the bedroom door. ‘So you have heard this story before, then.’

‘Not this version of it.’

‘There are many. No story stands alone.’ They entered the dim room within, and the door clicked shut behind them. The glow in the fireplace was low, although it still warmed the quiet air, and there was no candlelight on the marble commode this evening.

‘The moral of the story is very much the same, sir.’ Sebastian halted at the bedside. ‘Sometimes a problem seems bafflingly intricate when the solution is simple.’

He moved as if to set his master down on the bed, but Ciel put his hand against Sebastian’s waistcoat. 

‘Was the god angry?’

‘Which god, sir?’ Sebastian waited

‘The god of the knot. The one with the unspeakable name.’ 

‘Ah.’ The butler sat down on the bed’s edge, settling Ciel across his knees, and Ciel breathed in the starched hot smell of his jacket. He knew his cheeks must be colouring. Not that it mattered. The room was dark, and the shadows of the canopy were deep as still water. He could scarcely see the pale glimmer of his butler’s white collar. ‘This particular god was not especially fond of rules, my lord, so I don’t believe he would have been too upset by Alexander’s impudence. He might have been amused.’

Sebastian began to unbuckle his master’s shoe with patient fingers in the dark. ‘Perhaps he was even a little impressed.’ The shoe thumped softly onto the carpet at Sebastian’s feet. ‘Alexander was bold and lovely and clearly marked to die a glorious young death, and the god had a liking for that particular flavour of mortal foolishness.’

The other shoe followed. Ciel twitched his stockinged toes and they bumped at Sebastian’s calf. The demon’s chest was very warm against his shoulder, his arm. He felt himself twitch within the snug velvet shorts.

‘What was the god’s name?’

‘He had many, sir. One of his titles was _the god of many names_. And he had others. _Agrios_ , for his wildness. _Erikryptos_ , for his hiddenness.’ The gloved hand rested in the small of Ciel’s back. ‘ _Bassareus_ for the fox-skin robes of his worshippers.’ Sebastian began to untie the silk knot at Ciel’s throat. Could the demon see in the dim bedroom? Would he undress his master here in the darkness?

Ciel’s throat tightened at the thought. It was strange without the golden candlelight. It was quiet.

‘That’s quite a list of names for one god.’ Ciel shifted himself slowly on Sebastian’s knees, sitting up properly and turning towards him as the butler slipped the tight velvet jacket from his shoulders. He was straddling the lean thighs now, his own legs dangling loose. The slow hands untied his eye-patch, and he blinked in the shadows. Thick fabric was pulling tight across his stirring arousal and he tried not to wriggle, tried not to rub himself into his servant’s lap.

‘These are only a few of them.’ Sebastian was undoing the waistcoat. ‘He was Morychus, the wine-soaked. Endendros of the trees. Bromios, lion-roaring, and Cthonios, the earth-beneath.’ The butler hesitated. ‘He was also called _Pentheus_ , one who must suffer before he knows joy.’

‘If he had so many names, why was he unnameable?’

‘He had another that was hidden.’ Sebastian was beginning to unbutton the velvet shorts, and his fingers were firm and gentle against the parting of Ciel’s legs. 

Ciel bit his lip and tried to breathe, focusing his thoughts away from the butler’s touch. From the slow slide of Sebastian’s thumbs against his tender heat. ‘Bacchus,’ he said. A hiss. ‘The god was Bacchus.’ Of course it would be. The most debauched, the most unrestrained god of divine madness. 

‘That was not his hidden name, my lord.’ The careful fingertips had opened the buttoned flies and tugged them open, stirring between the folds of fabric as a cats-paw might. ‘The unspoken name was revealed to his worshippers only after years of secrecy. Trials of pain.’

Sebastian’s hands paused, and Ciel felt the warm breath on his ear as the demon bent his head to speak against it. ‘His hidden name was _mēdén._ Nothing and no-one. Because everything and everyone. He is the spirit of delirium in every living thing that cries out for liberation.’ 

‘Why are you telling me?’ It came out more like a whisper.

‘Have you not known pain, sir?’ A stirring thumb slid beneath the swell of his helpless flesh. ‘Are you not a votary of accursed things?’ Sebastian’s gloved hand eased itself into a grip on his tremulous arousal, and Ciel made a low sound. ‘It is not for everyone to know. Some things must not be spoken in the daylight.’ 

The hand felt hard and tight and swooningly good and Ciel flailed in the dark, grasping at the demon’s jacket. He found it. Clung to it. And there was no truce, there was never any truce, only the same story in different words. The scent of Sebastian’s uniform was sharp in his nostrils and he shivered, understanding. It wasn’t the shirt at all. It was the body beneath, the smell like heated iron, a smell like a mouthful of blood. 

Ruthless hand. Sharp-seamed gloved fingers. That squeeze was breathless and Ciel made the sound again, low in his throat like he was asking for something. And the demon laughed, a humming resonance that could have been a purr.

‘Do you want it, sir?’

Ciel couldn’t answer, trying to catch his breath, but his hands pulled Sebastian close. He pushed his forehead into the demon’s shoulder and squeezed his eyes shut.

‘Is this what you want from me, my lord?’

Strong and sliding, and he pushed against the grip. He pushed, and it was tight, and this time he couldn’t help the anguished bucking of his hips. 

Close as an animal’s breath was Sebastian’s mouth beside his cheek. Too close, not nearly close enough, hard rhythmic breath like the spattering rain, the clench around his cock. Hard. Harder. Breath. Breath. It was too easy to gasp at the unyielding heat, too good to grunt and push between, too good and the demon knew it. The demon was smiling in the dark. And Ciel knew, and he hated it, and he was hard and desperate with the need of it, flushed and burning hotly at the creature’s hiss of satisfaction.

Firm hand at his back, compelling, restraining, and firmer between his thighs; held soft, safe, sharpest, most dangerous, rocked in Sebastian's arms. And he felt the cool cheek against his own damp forehead as he thrust into the demon’s grasping fingers, again and again until his knees were trembling.

When he finished it was a spasm of flame and he whimpered, dampened, hanging from Sebastian’s neck with shaky hands. 

The demon’s fingers brushed his knee lightly. Sebastian was pressing the sticky dribble from his master’s bare skin with something, a handkerchief, and Ciel’s eyes stung. The butler lingered at his buttons to fasten them, but Ciel slid quivering off his lap and onto the bed. Found the pillow. Cheek to the cool linen, limp and heated. 

And then ridiculously, helplessly, he was sniffling into his hands and his chest was heaving with tears. It wasn’t silent and Sebastian would hear him, and he didn’t have anything clever to say if the butler were to ask him what was wrong.

The demon said nothing, though, and Ciel felt the gloved fingertips run down the fold of his legs. He tried to stifle his damp noises in his sleeve, hot trickles squeezing from his tight-shut eyes.

A deft touch tugging down his shorts, a slither of velvet fabric down his legs and Ciel flinched. Pulled his knees close to his chest.

‘Sebastian.’ It came out a husky whisper and he bit the back of his hand. In the grip of his servant’s firm hands his knees parted and he shivered, and then cried aloud. 

The demon’s mouth was hot and wet and it enclosed him completely.

‘Se _bas_ tian.’ Sharp and shaking. He arched against his pillow. ‘Se--’ And his words became mere noises. ‘Ah. Ah.’

The ripple of the beast’s tongue sucked and circled, fierce and strange around him and he writhed against it. 

‘Ah. Ah--’

He pushed at the demon’s head, hands clenching in the rumpled hair, but Sebastian hissed between his legs and then both wrists were pinned in one strong grip, hard against his chest and Ciel bucked. And again. 

The tongue lapped roughly, a tug of teeth down the length of his shivering cock.

‘ _Ah_.’

And then the cool lips, the suckling pressure, the low resonance like a sullen beast, like a satisfied cat, and he realised how hard he was inside Sebastian’s wet mouth. He bucked again.

Gripping fingers on the flesh of his thigh. Hard around his wrists. His heel thumped the demon’s heaving shoulder.

‘Ha, ahh-’

Cruel hungriness, the slaver at his thighs, better than any nightmare-- wet tongue between the jut of shaft and pouch, a nip of teeth, and hot breath, ravenous over him. A growl against his skin as he arched again and _squealed_ at the trembling through his legs, his back, his shivering cock-- and how he wanted it. He wanted it, the sweetness of the bitter poisoned mouth.

‘Ah, ah…’ 

Mere noise. Words beyond language. Unholy sounds, the things that cannot be said in daylight. 

A thousand thousand names of nameless gods.

‘Nha, ah-- _yes_ …’

Something tightened between his hips. And he crumpled with a cry like pain, tossing his flushed head against the pillow, and felt the tongue convulsing. Slow, savouring. The grip on his thigh.

And afterwards it licked him delicately clean. 

Ciel’s wrists fell loose, released. His fingers were numb and the darkness spun bright-noisy like golden bees.

The heavy blanket settled over his trembling legs; soft linen, woven wool. Tucked carefully at his chin. 

And after the silence, ‘I trust there is nothing else you want, sir.’

His considerate low voice. 

Ciel curled limp, his legs too tired to clench around the warm hum between them. He was flushed with perfect fire and no, no, there was nothing more he wanted, hiding his face against the pillow, except one thing, and he’d never dare to say it. He’d revealed too much today. Tonight. 

He couldn’t say it even now. Especially now. 

He said it. 

‘Stay.’ 

There was silence at his bedside, and he couldn’t breathe.

A slow weight dipped the mattress at Ciel’s shoulder as Sebastian sat down on the edge of the bed. On top of the covers. His back against the carved headboard, it would seem, and Ciel’s blanket was pinned down tight across his chest as the butler settled himself.

And it was silent.

Sebastian's words were dangerous. His voice was another mask, but his quietness was something else; a command. A concession. Or only empty shadow, perhaps.

Ciel waited a moment, his heart still pulsing in his throat, and knew there would be no more words tonight. 

He turned slowly beneath the heavy wool of his covers and set his back to the butler. Felt under his pillow for the comfort beneath. He stilled his breathing. Cold metal. Smooth ivory. It was quiet in his room. 

He slipped his fingers around the grip of his pistol, sighing, and it was almost laughable, almost a relief how easily sleep was pulling him under, lapping like a blood-warm tide around his body. Like a delicate tongue across his skin, slow gentle sleep, with his gun in his hand and the hot silence of the demon’s body at his back.

The demon listened as his master sank under. 

Small breaths. The boy was gone already, beyond all reach tonight. Some distant place of mortal dreaming. But he would find no safety there; his feet would always stumble in the dark. Always bring him blindly back to the beast who guarded him.

The demon sat still. His eyes behind closed lids felt dry and they ached.

A worthy master. He could pierce the child’s soul with voluptuous precision, and the strange small thing would spit and bite and open up for more. The demon ached to tear at the tenderness. Run his claws through the damp flinch of his master’s pain. 

Soon.

The demon swallowed slowly, tasting the lingering salt of the boy’s tired little body. Exquisite; unripened. Corrupt. Sharp, delicate. Shame, innocence. His own arousal stirred and he pressed his palm to it as a mortal would nurse a wound. Satisfaction was elusive but triumph, ah; it warmed his belly like coals. 

Those wide blue eyes would trickle blood for him.

Soon.

He shifted his restless knee a fraction and it nudged the sleeping heat of his master's soft weight. The child sighed, content. 

The demon's slow breath caught in his chest. Nearly a purr. 

Soon. Soon. 

Not yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~And that's the end of the story~
> 
> Thank you all so much! *bows* I utterly utterly enjoyed writing this, and I'm proud of it because the things you all seemed to like are the things I'm most pleased with, and it's life-affirming~
> 
> And yes: I have begun posting the sequel! (I hadn't planned it but I blame all of you~)  
> It's called 'Prepositions.' It isn't a resolution; not with these precious monsters, but it is a 'Further Adventures Of'. The next manga arc is Phantomhive Manor Murders and I have Too Many Ideas~
> 
> (I lowkey want to escalate the next one from 12% mild smut to 75% filthy smut *cackles wildly* Because that was a heck of an investment in UST slowburn, and it has to go somewhere, doesn't it?  
> But mostly because Sebastian has a naughty mind and also I am trash. Me, an intellectual: 'The difference between shameless smut and tasteful erotica is literary references.')  
> xxx


End file.
